Hebrew, Week 3: Day 1 (Ft. Best Grilled Cheese in NJ)

Woke up this AM convinced I would fail my quiz. Wouldn't you know it, I got an 97.5%.  I'm noticing a trend here.  I don't seem to ever know what is going on, but somehow I am awesome at vocabulary.  Here's hoping the exams are closer to the quizzes than anything else. 
This weekend it was all about participles (sorry my beloved high school English teacher, but I didn't even know what "participle" meant).  Today, we've moved on to pronouns.  Hey, at least I know what those are!  We are moving forward everyday, but also circling back to pick up things we left along the way.  It is very fluid, which one just has to accept. 
At the first lunch for new students 2 weeks ago, the chapel chaplain Jan warned us of what she calls "Impostor Syndrome."  Basically, one with Impostor Syndrome sits through lecture feeling as though they are a total fake and that sooner or later others will notice.  Jan told us that we all feel this way and are NOT impostors...  I try to believe her, but I have a very bad case of this syndrome.  My precept-mates will tell you that I come to precept everyday convinced I don't understand.  The ones that sit close have also noticed that I've been getting okay grades when the quizzes come back.  Some may gather I'm faking my lack of understanding...
Here lies the problem: the quizzes are mostly based on vocabulary.  Ever since my days of acing French exams in high school, I've been really good at memorizing vocab.  I even got a perfect score on a final exam one year, only to be accused of cheating by some mean-girl classmates.  But in Hebrew, we are learning new concepts everyday and that is the part that is lost on me.  So, I can do well on quizzes and still have no idea what's up.  In the end, I won't be writing papers in Biblical Hebrew.  I'll be examining words that are already there... so hopefully it's okay that I struggle with sentence structure.  

Anyway, I promised the best grilled cheese in NJ.  Rather, it's a very good grilled cheese I made in NJ.

Garlicky Grilled Cheese on Sourdough

Ingredients:
1 bulb of garlic
Olive oil
Smart Balance or butter
2 slices of good sourdough bread
Shredded Cheddar and Monterrey Jack

Directions:
1. Roast the garlic by following the directions here.
2. Spread Smart Balance or butter on the outsides of the two slices of bread.
3. Spread the roasted garlic on the insides of the two slices of bread.
4. Sprinkle the cheese over one side of the bread smeared with the garlic.  Top off with the other side.  (C'mon, you all know this part.)
5. Toast/grill the sandwich over medium low heat until the bread is golden brown and the cheese is ooey gooey.  Serve with tomato soup, because that's the way it's done folks.

Curried Mac and Cheese

I made this awhile ago but didn't get a chance to post it until now.  I highly recommend it!  I made it for my work going away party and to celebrate the AC getting fixed so I could finally use the oven again.  Everyone liked it, but we still had tons of leftovers because all the ladies are on diets and have way more self control than I do.  (On that note, I may have eaten 1/2 a bowl of taco dip today.)

Pre-baking, hence the lack of brown bread crumbs

We ate leftovers all week.  Here it is with some crostini. 

Curried Mac and Cheese

Adapted from Roger Mooking (His show is Everyday Exotic)

Yield: one 9x13 inch pan

Ingredients:

1 stick butter

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/2 red onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 green chile, split lengthwise, optional

1 tablespoon curry powder (I recommend hot curry powder, but be careful with it)

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

5 cups (2 percent low-fat) milk

2 1/2 cups Provolone or any other mild cheese, grated (I substituted about 1/2 cup sharp cheddar)

1 1/4 pounds elbow macaroni pasta, prepared according to package instructions

1/2 cup bread crumbs

Bunch asparagus, trimmed- I left this out and topped it with tomato slices (I love asparagus but the hubby doesn't like it)

Kosher salt

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a large pot, melt the butter with the oil over medium heat. Add in the red onion, garlic, and green chile and saute until tender, approximately 2 minutes. Sprinkle over the curry powder and all of the flour, stirring to create a roux. Whisk to remove the lumps, and cook the flour for approximately 1 minute.

3. Slowly pour in the milk while whisking to create a curried creamy sauce over low heat.

4. Bring the sauce to a simmer, and continue whisking for 2 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, discard the green chile, and add 2 cups grated Provolone, and stir until smooth.

5. Add the cooked macaroni to the curry sauce, mix until evenly coated, and season with salt. Transfer the macaroni mixture to a 9 by 9-inch baking dish. Sprinkle the top with 1/4 cup bread crumbs and 1/4 cup cheese.

6. Optional: Arrange the asparagus (or tomato) in a line over the macaroni. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup bread crumbs and cheese over the asparagus, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown

Savory Rosemary Cheese Spritz Crackers

In my quest to find savory recipes to make, I found this one.  I love it because it takes you through the motions of baking but won't leave you with an aching sweet tooth!

Clovers in honor of St. Patty's Day!

Savory Rosemary Cheese Spritz Crackers

Source: Foodnetwork.com

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

1 large egg yolk

6 tablespoons heavy cream

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup finely grated Pecorino cheese

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves

1 teaspoons fine salt

Pinch freshly ground nutmeg 

Special Equipment: Cookie press

1. Bring all ingredients to room temperature.

2. Beat the butter and lemon zest with an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth, about 30 seconds. Slowly beat in the egg yolk and cream. OR: mix by hand like I do.

3. Whisk the flour, pecorino, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, sugar, rosemary, salt, and nutmeg together in a bowl. 4. Gradually add the flour mixture into the butter mixture while mixing slowly. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat on medium speed to make a slightly sticky dough.

5. Fill the cookie press with the dough. Assemble the press with the desired disk shape (see cook's note), and press cookies onto ungreased baking sheets. Leave about one inch between cookies. 

6. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan and refrigerate cookies for 20 minutes.

7. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

8. Bake cookies, rotating pan halfway through, until golden, the cheese browns a bit, and the cookies smell nutty, about 20 to 25 minutes. Briefly cool the crackers on the baking sheets, then transfer to racks to cool. Serve or store in a tightly sealed container for up to 1 month.

Cook's Notes (from Foodnetwork.com): These freeze beautifully. Press the cookies out into desired shapes on cookie sheets and freeze. Transfer frozen crackers to a plastic bag, seal, and keep frozen for up to 1 month. When ready to bake, lay out frozen crackers on cookie trays and bake from frozen for 25 minutes.

Some disk shapes work better than others. Since this is savory cracker, we liked the cutters that result in a cracker shape cookie, like the ribbon, clover. Stars and and snowflakes work, too. 

My notes: 

- My crackers foamed with butter in the oven.  If this happens to you, make sure to be careful when turning the tray and removing them from the oven because they will slide around.  I put them on a cooling rack topped off with a paper grocery bag and paper towels to absorb some grease.

- I made these with the intention of sharing them on St. Patty's Day, but they were so good we ate all of them.  That's a lot of butter!

- I used only Pecorino cheese for simplicity's sake and they were delicious!

Here you can see my system for grease removal.