Grilled Cheese and Slaw

I was planning on making the pork chop recipe next but as Husband ate a pork chop for breakfast this morning I didn't think he'd want one for dinner. So I chose this recipe to make and boy am I glad I did. This meal is about 1000 times better than pork chops. But as I HATE pork chops that's really not saying much. But trust me this is good.

Usually I read my way thru a recipe before starting it but this was just a grilled cheese with coleslaw - Do I really need to read it? - I think to myself. And I answered myself with a resounding NO.

Well, perhaps I should have read it first. Not that it didn't turn out but still it may have gone smoother. I started with making the slaw first. This really was a snap because my Metro, of course, did not have heads of cabbage. I had to buy a prepared bag of cabbage/slaw mix. So really all I had to do was chop the apple and make the dresssing.

As I'm chopping the apple Husband comes into the kitchen to snoop around. He's pretty excited for this meal too because he LOVES grilled cheese. But he freaks out when he sees the apple.

HUSBAND: Apple!...Apple! What do you need apple for?

ME: Can you just please let me make this? (in a terse voice)

HUSBAND: Why are you using apple? [big sigh]

ME: Just let me do this! (continuing to chop)

HUSBAND: Oh...Oh...it's for the salad. I thought you were putting apple in the grilled cheese.
ME: Please just let me make this in peace. (edgy pleading voice)

With which he left the room- with his hopes of a fantsatic dinner surely dashed. So I finish chopping the unwanted apple and start making the dressing. I'd actually doubled the ingredients for the slaw but still only made a single for the dressing because I didn't want it to be too much dressing so I thought I'd start with 1x for the dressing and then if I needed more dressing I'd just make more. So I'm blowing thru the dressing recipe when my eyes fall upon "1/2 tsp caraway seeds". F**K. How the eff did I miss this when making my grocery list? HOW? Well it really doesn't matter does it because the point is I'm in the middle of this recipe and I haven't bought the effing caraway seeds. Will it taste horrible without them??? I can't think of a single recipe that I've ever made with caraway seeds. But I decide to take a look around the black hole that is my spice cupboard. And let me just say thank you to my parents neighbour who bought me for Christmas one year those spinny pre-filled spice racks because that had some caraway seeds on it. So I breath a sigh of relief and pop the seal off that and finish the dressing. Add it to the slaw.... and it's not enough. But I'm so relieved that I have caraway seeds that I don't care. So I'm whipping together dressing #2 when I realize that I did eff up this recipe after all, Caraway seeds and all, because I accidentally added twice the mango chutney required for BOTH times I made the dressing. "Shit", I'm thinking to myself. But I'm looking at the bowl in my hand and there's a good amount of unmixed chutney on the sides so I scrape out as much chutney as I can and press on.

With the slaw made I start on the grilled cheese. For Bread I'm using Old Fashioned Belgian from the bakery and my cheddar is 2 Year Old Balderson. This part I'm quite familiar with - nothing cures a hangover like a grilled cheese when you're too hung over to make it to Wendy's so we're quite adept at making these in my household. Rather than use butter for grilling the bread as we normally do Nigella uses oil and of course the grill pan for presentation. Ideally this is when you would use your panini press but I don't have one of those so I just pressed down real hard with the spatula while grilling. 4 minutes later and dinner is served.

I thought this dinner was perfect. I was satified but too full and because I doubled the slaw recipe I have some for my lunch tomorrow. Husband thought this would make a better luch than a dinner but he liked it too. He even conceeded that the salad was good "even for having apples in it" to quote him.

And so a successful dinner for MrsK and Nigella ;)