Double Pepper Double Cheese Grilled Cheese

Two kinds of peppers--fresh sweet and pickled banana--with two kinds of cheese in this creamy vegetarian grilled cheese sandwich.

I've not been one to follow food holiday trends [who came up with National Blueberry Pancake Day in the wintertime?] but I get why grilled cheese sandwiches are popular in Spring. It's sunny, yet it can be cool. A grilled cheese sandwich is the perfect lunch.

This easy vegetarian sandwich would be terrific for a Meatless Monday supper, too. Shoot, if you slice the peppers during weekend food prep it's ready in minutes. If you don't slice the peppers ahead of time it's ready in minutes+2.

I made a batch of these sandwiches one sunny-yet-cool Saturday lunch. I used both my Multigrain Sourdough bread as well as my spouse's German dark rye--it's good on both. The whole family appreciated the warm cheesiness. I'd say we all liked the peppers, but my daughter merely tolerated them. 

I got the idea the same lunch I head about Havarti & Chutney grilled cheese. At Tanks Bar & Grill I had the 'don't even think about asking for substitutions' grilled cheese. It had mayo, mustard, pickled banana peppers and some other stuff--but those listed parts resonated with me and I had to try them at home. 

For other grilled cheese sandwich ideas, plus a lovely tomato soup to dunk them in, please click on a photo below. This is one of my Clickable Collages of Recipe Suggestions--yet another way to give you ideas for what to do with your produce. 

Please refer to my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient for further recipes by produce item, and follow me on Pinterest where I'm pinning cool things I find around the web.

Meatball Marinara Mascarpone Pizza

Meatballs, marinara sauce, and mozzarella on top of a mascarpone-spread pizza crust.

My nephew is a typical teen who has an after school job working at a pizza joint. Except he spends his wages on truffle oil, because one of his favorite pizzas from work has truffle oil as a finish. Can you tell it's not a typical pizza joint?

Over Christmas we were fortunate to host my family of origin. My brother and his family came from Denmark, my brother flew up from Florida, and my folks made the trek from Washington, DC. We crammed a lot of food into a few days people into the kitchen and had fun. During a quiet moment I was able to sit down and page through a pizza cookbook my nephew gave to his mom. It's from his pizza joint, Gorms. Although the book is in Danish I was able to glean the gist of some of the recipes.

One ingredient I saw used struck me--mascarpone cheese. Now, I am decidedly NOT a foodie and one way that proves it is that I get mascarpone and marzipan mixed up. They are both used in things I don't typically make--desserts--and I'm not crazy about the taste of the marzipan. I did not realize that mascarpone could be used in a savory application, but after reading that cookbook I decided to get a tub and play.

Laura is more worldly about ingredients than I am, and she tells me that mascarpone is just Italian cream cheese. Well, just like crème fraîche [by the way I am copying and pasting this out of wikipedia each time I talk about crème fraîche since I don't know how to make all those characters--where was I?] Oh! Just like crème fraîche elevates a simple potato sauce better than sour cream, mascarpone gives this pizza a delightfully creamy base. Leftovers even reheat well. Try this next time you've got a hankering for a meatball pizza!

For other pizza ideas, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. It's broken down into doughs, vegetarian pizzas, savory pizzas using fruit, and meat-centric pizzas like this one. I also pin pizzas from around the web to my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board, and often share the raw footage of that night's pizza most Fridays on my FB page.

Spicy Lima Bean Dip with Avocado

Lima bean and tahini dip with avocado for creaminess and salsa verde for spiciness. Top with more veggies and queso cheese for a tasty snack!

Ah, April. Everything is greening up outside. Our grass is enjoying the recent rains which, along with last Fall's snack of finely shredded leaves worked in with the mulching mower, results in a vibrant lawn I'd be proud to let a guinea pig nibble. Sadly after 5 years we are without guinea pigs to nibble grass. Instead, I have a posse of dogs who enjoy lying in the sun of an afternoon.

Vincent with the garlic bed.

I've planted peas and chard in the garden, and each day the garlic looks stronger and taller. Interestingly, there's now garlic appearing in 3 out of our 5 raised beds. I rotate my crops and apparently I have missed several bulbs over the years. If I get them out this time, I'm curious what a 'forgotten for 3-4 years' garlic bulb looks like. I'll share a photo on my FB page.

I wanted to green up our plates, as well. In the months leading up to the start of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share season I bounce between using put up vegetables from the freezer and buying fresh vegetables from the store. It is a treat to buy avocados because I know I'll be able to enjoy them as soon as they are ready (they won't be preempted due to vegetable triage).

In this recipe, I decided to keep the green theme going and use some lima beans from the freezer. I grew up eating lima bean and corn succotash but my kids are not fans, so I was looking for another way to use them. The lima beans blend nicely in a food processor and make an awesome veggie appetizer.

For other recipes using avocados please see my Avocado Recipes Collection. For other recipes using beans, please see my Bean Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource to help my readers figure out what to do when they've got ____________ to use. For other Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks, please see my Pinterest board of the same name.