What’s buttered on the outside, has melted cheese on the inside and is grilled all over?

Well, that’s a dumb question — grilled cheese, duh.

Wrong-ola.

I was referring to one of the newest food fads, the panini.

If you’re a cook, a chef, a restaurateur, or you just like to watch the Food Network, you’ve probably been hearing about panini’s like crazy in the last few months. Personally, I first heard of a panini this past November while I was Christmas shopping with my mom. My sister had asked for a panini press for Christmas and as a result mom and I were left confused and bewildered in search of this specialty item. (By the way we found a great one at Kohl’s.)

Well, ever since I learned what a panini was I feel like I’ve been hearing the word every time I turn around. In fact, I just Googled “panini” and got 9,240,000 results. Now that’s a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches.

Yes, I said it, and I’ll say it again: paninis are just grilled cheese sandwiches. Now, to be fair, it is clear that these are the fancy version of this old-fashioned favorite. But let’s be honest and call a rose a rose — or at least call a sandwich a sandwich.

Well, whatever you call them, this food fad has some great appeal for several reasons. One, we love to grill everything here in America. Two, the charm and versatility of the sandwich is impossible to deny. Three, melted cheese is the ultimate in comfort food.

According to Wikipedia the panini (or panino if you’re going to use the real Italian word for this snotty version of the grilled-cheese sandwich) is a sandwich made from a small loaf of bread, typically a ciabatta. The loaf is often cut horizontally and filled with salami, ham, meat, cheese or other food and sometimes served hot. A grilled panini is buttered on the outside and grilled in a press.

Now, if you’ve been watching the Food Network you know that to qualify as a panini on TV it has to be hot, grilled and include cheese. Plus, no one seems to care if you use ciabatta, rye, frech bread or even sour dough. That means there are a lot of classic sandwiches — some are even my personal favorites — that can be reinterpreted into panini-style yumminess.

So, now that I’ve insulted this food fad it’s time to give you some of the panini ideas I got from my sister — who is both a Food Network junkie and panini-press owner. Remember, one of the great things about making any kind of sandwich is the fact that you don’t have to be very precise about the amounts of ingredients you use.

Panini Reuben
Rye Bread
Corned beef
Sauerkraut
Swiss cheese
Reuben sauce or Thousand Island dressing
Butter

Assembly couldn’t be easier. Put the amounts of each ingredient that you want into the sandwich, butter the outside of the sandwich and grill. If you don’t use a panini press or similar device you’ll have to flip it on the grill — just like you do when you make a grilled cheese.

Cheesy BLT Paninis
Sour dough bread
Cooked bacon
Sliced tomatoes
Swiss Cheese
Spinach
Butter

Again, put the ingredients on in the proportion you want and grill until the cheese melts. You don’t have to butter the outside of the bread, but butter is just good stuff.

Pizza-nini
Crusty garlic bread
Spaghetti sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Other pizza toppings (like pepperoni)
Butter

Spread the sauce on the bread. Put cheese on the sauce. Stick any other toppings in there you want, butter the bread and grill it!

Bruscetta Panini
French bread
Mozzarella
Sliced tomatoes
Basil
Butter

By now you get it right? Assemble to your liking and grill.

I’ve got more panini goodness for you all next week!

This is one of my family’s favorite dishes. My friend, Heidi, gave me the recipe many years ago and I make it often. It’s really good with some flat bread (or pita bread) and hummus. Once in a while, I will grill chicken to serve with it, but it really doesn’t need it. It’s a meal on its own.

Vegetarian paella

1 T. veggie oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 cup basmati, texmati, jasmine or long-grain white rice

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. ground cumin (I leave this out because my husband thinks cumin smells like feet)

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

1 can (14.5 oz.) recipe-ready diced tomatoes in juice, drained with juice reserved

1 small bay leaf (optional)

1 cup frozen corn kernals, thawed

1 cup frozen peas, thawed

1 can (19 oz) kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup dark seedless raisins

1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion; saute 3 minutes. Add garlic, saute 1 minute. Stir in rice, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon and salt.

Add just enough water to drained tomato juice to make 1 3/4 cups. Add to skillet with bay leaf, if using. Bring to boil. Lower heat; cover and simmer for 10 min. Stir in corn, peas, beans, drained tomatoes and raisins. Cover and simmer 10 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed.

To serve, sprinkle with toasted almonds.

I’ve been thinking about lamb because the Journal’s Food page today is about lamb, and so is my column. In my column, I mentioned my mom’s recipe for a lamb shish kabob. Over the weekend, I searched through my recipe boxes and found that I actually have my mom’s original copy.

 

It’s an old, stained yellow card with a drawing of a little 1950s chef on it. Scribbled sideways and on a slant are Mom’s added ingredients and changed amounts. My mom, thank goodness, is still going strong at 86, but looking at her familiar handwriting from so long ago brings memories of her young self, full of verve and energy, busy trying new recipes and cooking up a storm. It reminds me of what a great cook she was, even though she didn’t seem to focus much of her attention on cooking. Of course, we didn’t notice the work; we only inhaled dinner before racing off to pursue our childish pleasures. Just think how many unsung Mom cooks there are in home kitchens all over the country.

 

I guess we all know that when we make a dish from our family past, that they are flavored with wonderful memories. Here’s the recipe. I’ve copied it along with Mom’s changes. We always called it “lamb shish kabob,” but on the card it is …

 

Lamb en Brochette

½ cup olive oil

6 tablespoons soy sauce

¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Oregano

1 large onion, cut in rings

3 tablespoons lemon juice or vinegar

½ cup sherry or burgundy

3 to 4 pounds lean lamb meat

Mix ingredients together to make a marinade. Cut lamb into cubes and leave in the marinade for an hour or longer, turning and rubbing the seasonings into the meat. Thread on skewers and broil alone or with the combinations below. Serves 6.

Lamb combinations

String skewers with lamb cubes, alternating with small, ripe, unpeeled tomatoes and small peeled onions; or squares of bacon and mushrooms; or cubes of parboiled eggplant (brushed with oil) and wedges of tomatoes. Or, following Mom’s way, with mushrooms, onions and small canned potatoes.

It’s a sweet time of year. March is just around the corner.

THIN MINT MILKSHAKE
Ingredients:
8-10 Thin Mint Cookies (whole)
3-4 Thin Mint Cookies (crushed)
1 cup milk
2 scoops chocolate, vanilla, or mint ice cream

Directions:
Place milk and whole cookies into a blender, and blend on a medium speed until smooth. Add ice cream carefully, and blend on a high speed until fully blended and creamy. Place most of the crushed cookies on the bottom of a shake glass (saving some cookies to put on the top). Slowly pour the shake into the glass and top with remaining cookies. Serve with a straw AND a spoon, as it will be VERY thick. Makes 2 shakes. For more recipes, go to www.girlscoutssela.org/

Every now and then I find myself hit with a twinge of nostalgia for eras of the past – and usually they’re eras I didn’t even live through! If I miss the ’80s (which I did actually live through) I have myself a John Hughes movie night. When I have a hankering for the ’70s I can watch “Dazed and Confused” or “That ’70s Show.” If I need a ’60’s fix I listen to a little Janis. And every now and then I’ll watch “Forrest Gump” to satisfy my nostalgia for all those time periods.  

But besides music and movies there’s not much I can do to squelch my nostalgic bursts, and it gets tough when I have the 50’s on the brain. I mean they don’t even play the ’50s music on the oldies stations anymore. But last night I discovered a great place to go get my ’50s fix – Arnold’s.

Arnold’s is a new diner in Rapid City tucked into the parking lot of a hotel near the intersection of East North Street and I-90. I went there last night for the first time and the experience was all of my “’50’s diner” dreams fulfilled.

Now, it certainly wasn’t a perfect experience. To start off with, I don’t think it’s in the best location. I got lost looking for it and even after I spied it from across the interstate I had a hard time figuring out how to get to it. Plus, parking sort of stunk because the door is on the opposite side of the building from the parking lot. So, as I opened the door I was thinking, “This might not be as good as I’d hoped.”

I was wrong.

All of my high hopes were met with the charm of days gone by. The sweet music, the faintly flickering neon and the adorable monogrammed costumes/uniforms of the staff were all great. But they were nothing compared to the food.

We started off our meal with an adventurous appetizer – breaded, deep-fried pickle spears. Now I’m a big pickle fan (in fact, I’m eating one right now as I write this blog), and I like them with just about everything. But I usually eat them cold – unless I just have to break into a new jar before it’s chilled. So I didn’t have much hope that I would enjoy these deep-fried versions of my friend the pickle.

Again, I was wrong.

The pickles were lightly battered, warm and crispy on the outside. On the inside they were filled with all of the salty vinegar I love. We dipped them in ranch dressing – another combo I was suspicious of. My suspicions were laid to rest with the first creamy, tangy bite (and I’m starting to think my Southern friends are right that almost everything is better deep-fried with a side of ranch dressing).

To be honest, I probably should have stopped after the pickles, because I really wasn’t that hungry. But the burgers all had such charming names: the Ferrari burger, the Stingray burger and the burger I ate – the Corvette burger.

Now that is what I call high-performance food. It came on a buttered, toasted bun with sautéed mushrooms, grilled onions and a slice of delicious, melted Swiss cheese – and I slathered mine with pickle chips, tomatoes and some A-1 steak sauce.

Now, until last night I wasn’t much of a burger fan – but that was probably the best burger I’ve had in my entire 28 years of life. I am now an official Arnold’s burger fan. Furthermore, I am incredibly picky about my French-fries, and Arnold’s passed my picky fry test. Those thick, square-cut taters tasted great. Now, if you must to have crunchy fries these fries aren’t for you – but they are definitely for me.

I only have one regret about my visit to Arnold’s. The burger was as big as my head and I could only eat three-fourths of it. Normally that would be a good thing, but I was so full by the time I got through my burger that I didn’t have room left for one of their shakes.

I’ll have to go back another time to test Arnold’s ice-cream prowess.

Our waitress, Debbie (who was fantastic, by the way), told us that she normally works the breakfast shift. Arnold’s serves breakfast?! That means I’ll have to go back for some ’50s-style breakfast too. We’ll just see if they pass my picky hash-brown test.

So if you need a ’50s nostalgia fix – or a fried pickle and burger fix – Arnold’s is a great place to go.

The Journal’s Food section today is all about pancakes. Ready for more?

Here is a great recipe for Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes (suitable for company) and our family’s favorite syrup. After first making this about 10 years ago, we haven’t been able to bring ourselves to buy syrup off the shelf; store-bought syrup seems to have a funny aftertaste.

Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes

3 eggs

3 cups flour

3 cups buttermilk

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed, rinsed and drained

Beat eggs with hand beater until fluffy; beat in remaining ingredients (except blueberries) until smooth. Gently stir in blueberries. Pour about 1/4 cup batter onto heated griddle. Cook until puffed and dry around edges. Turn and cook other sides until golden brown.

Pancake Syrup

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

4 cups water

1 stick butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients, except butter and vanilla, in sauce pan and slow boil to thicken. When mixture is thick, add butter and vanilla. Serve warm.

Much like other people who make a living behind a computer 8 hours a day I have a bit of a weight problem. I’m not obese, but – like many people in America – I need to lose about 20 pounds. And it would probably be best if I lost 30 – or 40.

Plus it’s diet season.

Okay, I want to lose weight – I do. But my sedentary lifestyle isn’t the only obstacle I have to overcome. First of all, I’m lazy. Not sit on the couch and fondle the remote lazy. (Well, I am that kind of lazy sometimes.) But I mean cooking lazy. I want stuff to be easy. I want it to be easy to prepare, easy to store and I want it to keep in the fridge for at least week.

Diet food is rarely easy. And if it is easy – like NutriSystem – it is freaking expensive! Which is a problem, because I’m also somewhat monetarily challenged. So I need food that is cheap. I can’t afford to buy expensive cuts of meat for all of my meals. Heck, I can’t even afford the good cold-cuts for my sandwiches.

In the rare occasions that I have found easy and inexpensive diet foods – like Weight Watchers frozen dinners – they tasted like cardboard. To be fair the Weight Watchers frozen dinner tasted like cardboard with pretty good marinara sauce on it; but cardboard nonetheless. So, to top it all off I have these pesky taste buds that desire elaborate heavy flavors that diet food rarely delivers.

I know my problem is that I want it all from diet food. I want it to be easy, cheap and tasty. Which is why I’m usually not on a diet. Heck, I can barely find non-diet food that is easy, cheap and tasty. (Think Ramen noodles – easy and cheap, but yeah not so tasty.)

Unfortunately – and I know it isn’t the best way to live – due to my fast paced and low budgeted lifestyle most of my food comes out of a can, a box or a jar. Let me tell you eating such food is an easy way to gain weight – not lose it.

In my search for the elusive ”easy, cheap and tasty” food I haven’t found much. But I have developed a killer tuna salad recipe. Now, I don’t know how many calories, or carbs, or grams of fat are in it – but tuna is one of those foods that is good for you. And most Americans don’t eat enough fish. So if you manage to eat a small amount of this tuna salad it is a truly satisfying, easy, cheap and tasty food that might qualify as diet food.

Crystal’s Tuna Salad
2 pouches/cans of tuna (even though I’m cheap I’m picky and I spring for the white albacore Bumblebee tuna)
2 tablespoons of yellow mustard
1/2 cup of Light Miracle Whip
1/4 cup pickle relish
1/4 cup dill pickle relish
1/4 cup yellow pepper rings (chopped)
1/4 cup roasted red peppers or pimentos (from a jar/chopped)

Make sure to drain all the yummy pickled stuff really well or the mixture will be a little runny. Don’t worry if it’s runny, it will still taste great. Then just throw it all in a big bowl and stir. That’s it.

 Depending on who you are you’ll probably want to add or subtract some items. This is just where I start personally. Sometimes I add in some chopped green onions too. But this tuna salad is nice and colorful with lots of flavor and it does keep in the fridge for almost a week.

This recipe makes a lot so it usually lasts me almost a week. Personally, I eat it on white bread, but I suppose you should eat it on lettuce or whole wheat bread if you’re serious about dieting.

Anyone else got a recipe that’s easy, cheap and tasty that could qualify as diet or health food?

Several readers commented that Laura’s oh-so-simple chili is missing something - chili powder, mushrooms, whatever. Maybe it’s Valentine’s Day that’s got me thinking this way, but it seems to me that what Laura’s “plain Jane” chili needs is a Latin lover to spice things up - and I’ve got just the recipe.

This tamale pie from Glamour magazine nicely dresses up “plain Jane” chili for a party. This dish can be put together with foods you probably already have in your kitchen, making it great for a quick meal. It’s a favorite with friends I’ve made it for.

To speed up preparation, it can be made with canned chili, but it’s even better when you make a batch of a good homemade “plain Jane” chili and use that as the basis for this tamale pie. Ole!

Glamour-ous Tamale Pie

In a large casserole dish, combine two (15-ounce) cans of chili or 4 cups homemade chili, one (8-ounce) can of corn or 1 cup thawed whole-kernel frozen corn, and a handful of sliced black olives. Then, in a bowl, stir together one box Jiffy corn muffin mix, one egg, 1/2 cup milk and a few teaspoons of chili powder until just moistened. Add 1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese and half a green pepper, minced, into the corn muffin batter. Drop heaping spoonfuls of the batter all around the edges of the casserole. Bake 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for another 30 minutes or until the corn bread topping is golden and puffy. Makes six to eight servings.

So, several fast food chains have recently started selling breakfast in the area. All I can think is that some super-secret information has been leaked from McDonalds about how profitable their breakfast endeavors have been.

Just a few short years ago Hardees expanded it’s breakfast menu. Since then Arby’s has joined in. And recently Taco Johns has joined the breakfast action.

That’s right. You can now get tacos for breakfast.

Well, they aren’t really tacos, they’re burrito thingies. Personally I don’t do spicy food for breakfast. My German heritage and my Irish stomach can’t handle it. But this morning I did go to Taco John’s for breakfast because I had an insane craving for Potato Ole’s.

Now I didn’t have much hope that they would have the lovely golden bits of potato goodness available before 10 a.m. – I mean, McDonald’s doesn’t serve French fries in the morning – but I was pleasantly surprised! I got my Ole’s and started the day off with a kick. Well, as much of a kick as my South Dakotan digestive system would allow.

I don’t think I’ll do that very often, but it’s great to know that the option is there. How about all of you? What do like to eat for breakfast? Does anyone out there gett a craving for fast food items in the a.m. – or is it just me?

It’s been a chili couple of weeks — stock show chili, Super Bowl chili and, and in Deadwood, it’s Mardi Gras chili. It all adds up — dozens, maybe hundreds of chili recipes with dozens and, who knows, maybe hundreds of ingredients.

One thing I am sure of – none of them remotely resembles my standard chili recipe, which to a chili gourmand wouldn’t be worth a hill of … chili beans.

But even though I am a little embarrassed by my chili recipe, I still like it and offer it here:

Plain Jane Chili

1 pound hamburger

1/2 onion chopped (or more if you like onion)

1 can dark kidney beans

1 can tomatoes

1 can tomato sauce

Brown beef with onions in a large frying pan; drain off grease. Drain kidney beans, then throw all three cans into pan. Sometimes, I throw in a couple of pinches of sugar to moderate the tomato flavor. Heat up for as little as 10 minutes. Serve in bowls. For extra-fancy, grate cheese and throw on top.

As you can see, this recipe doesn’t even have chili pepper in it. So maybe it can’t officially be called chili. But it is a surprisingly satisfying lunch or dinner during our chilly winter months.