Perhaps I've been living in a sandwich bubble - I just ate my first croque-monsieur ten days ago. Well, I guess technically I've had hundreds of them, if you count all the "regular" ham and cheese sandwiches that made their way into my lunchbox growing up. But if you go by Larousse Gastronomique (a resource that's new to me but is evidently the gospel when it comes to French cuisine) what distinguishes a croque-monsieur is that it's grilled. And then there's the béchamel sauce. Lord have mercy. How over the top is that? I mean, literally, a cheese sauce broiled on top of an already sodium-carb-cholesterol-loaded beast? Suffice it to say, that was a new experience for me. Apparently béchamel sauce isn't necessarily a required component and the French eat them with or without it. My sense of health responsibility has to draw the line and say "hold the béchamel"! Want to skip ahead? Click here for the final recipe.

Croque-Monsieur Panini - Attempt #1

• Bread: Ciabatta
• Meat: Black Forest ham
• Cheese: Smoked Gruyère
• Condiments: Whole grain Dijon mustard
• "Goodies": Arugula

THE CONSTRUCTION: The fact that croque-monsieurs are traditionally grilled makes creating a panini version (as I have been doing as part of my Panini Happy Classics series) somewhat straightforward. But there were a few other considerations: the type of bread and cheese and, of course, the béchamel. White bread, which is typically used for croque-monsieurs, isn't the best for pressing. It's soft and so it flattens out pretty easily. So I turned to one of my favorite panini breads: good ol' sturdy and flavorful ciabatta. I cut a roll in half lengthwise and turned the halves inside out - that is, I prepared to build the sandwich with the cut sides facing the outside in order to have nice flat surfaces for even grilling (as I recommended in "7 Tips for Making Great Panini"). Normally a croque-monsieur would be presented on buttered bread, but since I was using an olive oil-based ciabatta I drizzled a little olive oil on the cut sides to make them extra crispy and tasty once it came time to grill.

If I were to try to re-create the croque-monsieur I enjoyed a few weeks ago, next up would be a layer of rich, creamy béchamel sauce. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I thought I'd punch up the flavor and texture quotient with some whole grain Dijon mustard on both crust sides of the ciabatta.

Arugula was another "non-standard" ingredient I thought would add good peppery flavor as well as a bit of color in the sandwich. That went down on the bottom bread piece.

I'd intended to stick with the traditional Gruyère for cheese, but oddly enough the only Gruyère my local market carried was a smoked variety from Boar's Head. I figured that might provide good additional flavor so I went with it. I lay about a slice and a half on top of the arugula, enough to cover the length of the roll.

Black Forest ham went on next. Now, I can't claim to know a whole lot about the difference between various types of ham but I do know that I prefer this dry, smoky variety to the wet Oscar Mayer type. Not sure how strong the ham flavor was going to be versus the cheese, I decided to go with just one slice. I added another slice and a half of Gruyère, positioned the top half of ciabatta and grilled the sandwich on medium-high heat (375 degrees) for about 5 minutes.

THE RESULTS: Pretty good. It was nice and crisp, flavorful for sure. The mustard was definitely pronounced - not a bad thing, since I like it, but maybe a touch strong for some. I also kind of lost the flavor of the ham amidst the cheese, which wasn't a huge surprise given there was twice as much cheese as ham on the sandwich! The smoky flavor of the cheese itself, by the way, was rather subtle and tasted great. I thought this version was good, but could be improved upon - on to Attempt #2!

Croque-Monsieur Panini - Attempt #2

To tone down the mustard prominence, I spread the whole grain Dijon on just one half of the bread. On the other half, I tried out my new roasted garlic aioli spread I recently picked up at Williams-Sonoma. I thought it would still provide great flavor plus a little of the creaminess that I was missing without the béchamel sauce. I also added a second slice of ham to balance out the ham-to-cheese ratio.

THE RESULTS: Very satisfying! Replacing some of the Dijon with roasted garlic aioli definitely mellowed the flavors - less tangy, more savory, which is what I was going for. And the additional slice of ham made the sandwich feel more "substantial" - like a ham sandwich with cheese, rather than a grilled cheese with a touch of ham. All in all, a tasty panini-fied adaptation of a croque-monsieur. Bon appetit!

Get the final recipe!

Check out more from the Panini Happy Classics Series:

• A Little Breakfast Panini Party (Bagel & Lox)
• An Ode (or Two!) to California (BLT)
• The Taste of Childhood (Peanut Butter & Jelly)
• This Panini is "In Da Club" (Club Sandwich)

My sister ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches virtually every single day from the time she was 5 years old until...well, just this week she told me she made one at her law office! I just read an interesting statistic on the Skippy website that said the average American child will eat 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches by the time he or she graduates from high school. Unbelievable! Growing up, I thought PB&J was okay but it wasn't a fave. I was more of a deli meats girl: bologna, salami and something our local delicatessen (my mom was the only mom who ever said "delicatessen"!) called "turkey roll". I even liked liverwurst in elementary school!

• Bread: Seeded multigrain artisan bread
• Meat: None
• Cheese: None
• Condiments: Chunky peanut butter, strawberry preserves
• Goodies: Fresh strawberries

THE CONSTRUCTION: I have to preface this by saying I can't believe I'm about to discuss how I went about building a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Man! Oh well...here goes. So as I mentioned, my goal for this panini-style PB&J was to give it some texture. I started with the bread. Wonder Bread and later whole wheat sandwich bread - once mom caught onto that - was de rigeur for PB&J as I remember it from the '80s. Both are too soft to press on the panini grill, so I turned to a thicker, heartier variety: a seeded multigrain loaf from my local market. Baked fresh hours earlier, it already had a seedy crunch without any grilling so it looked to be a great foundation for my texture-ful sandwich.

Next was the peanut butter itself. That was an easy one: go chunky. It turns out that most people (60%) prefer creamy over chunky, according to Skippy, and that East Coasters prefer creamy while West Coasters prefer chunky. Perhaps that explains my peanut butter disconnect, as a California kid living with New York parents! Anyway, Skippy Reduced-Fat Super Chunk it was.

Which leaves the J. It takes an otherwise mouth-cementing bite to a whole other sweet level. Strawberry has been my favorite as long as I can remember, as much for its bright sweetness as for its bold, bright color. Now, technically you'd have to call my sandwich a PB&P because I used strawberry preserves rather than jelly (I've read about the various distinctions, but it still has me confused). I thought it would be nice to add a layer of fresh strawberry slices for even more - you got it - texture. Plus, we're starting to get some nice strawberries in the grocery store.

To give the bread that nice crisp, toasty crust I like so much, I brushed a little melted butter on the outside of each slice. I flipped them over and began applying my fillings - Super Chunk peanut butter and strawberry slices (so pretty!) on one side and preserves on the other. I closed up the sandwich and grilled it on medium-high (375 degrees) for about 3-4 minutes until it was nicely toasted on the outside and the peanut butter had melted into a semi-gooey wonderfulness.

THE RESULTS: Where have you been all my life? If a PB&J like this had been placed in my lunchbox back in the day, I'd still be eating them all the time today like my sister. There was definitely no mushiness to be found - texture abounded. Crunch came not only from the peanuts but also the crispy grilled buttery bread and the seeds with dotted the crust. The hot, melted peanut butter was incredibly satisfying. And the fresh strawberries helped up the balance of fruit-to-peanut butter such that the sandwich on the whole wasn't too bread-y. A new way to enjoy PB&J and a great excuse to bring out the panini grill!

Get the final recipe!

Check out more from the Panini Happy Classics series:

• A Little Breakfast Panini Party (Bagel & Lox)
• An Ode (or Two!) to California (BLT)
• In Search of M. Croque (Croque-Monsieur)
• This Panini is "In Da Club"! (Club Sandwich)

Are you as jazzed as I am for the new season of "Top Chef"?! I didn't realize how much I missed it until last night's premiere - all the creative culinary stylings, the drama. I mean, they kicked it all off with a quick fire about deep dish Chicago-style pizza - what could draw me in more??

I've also already learned something from the show. In case you missed the first episode, the chefs' first challenge was to prepare classic dishes - eggs benedict, chicken piccata, duck a l'orange and the like. The point, as head judge Tom Colicchio explained, was that you have to get grounded on the classics in order to appreciate the newer dishes that are created today. That idea really stuck with me.

For the past few months I've been brainstorming and kitchen-testing all kinds of panini concepts, but it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to take a step back and revisit classic sandwiches. PB&J, BLT, grilled cheese, reuben, croque-monsieur, monte cristo, cuban - they're tried and true. Of course, I've already tackled one classic, the club sandwich. Over the next few weeks I'm going to do a series: Panini Happy Classics. I'll aim to capture the essential elements of these iconic sandwiches and reinterpret them as panini. Many of them have been done before, but I'm going to enjoy the opportunity to put my spin on them.

Panini Happy Classics:

• A Little Breakfast Panini Party (Bagel & Lox)
• An Ode (Or Two!) to California (BLT)
• This Panini is "In Da Club"! (Club Sandwich)
• The Taste of Childhood (Peanut Butter & Jelly)
• In Search of M. Croque (Croque-Monsieur)
• Cheeseburger Panini, Animal-Style (Cheeseburger Patty Melt)
• Yup, I Grilled Cookies! (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• More to come - stay tuned!

Better than Microwave Alone...But I Wouldn't Call it "Grilled"

Two minutes later, I had my answer: kind of. As you can see in the photos, the Micro Grill did produce grill marks. They weren't very dark or deep, but they were there. When I went to cut the sandwich in half, I could tell right away that the bread was pretty soft rather than crisp. Soft, but not gummy, as it would have been in the microwave alone. Tastewise, it wasn't a bad sandwich - just not what I would call a panino.

Would I use the Micro Grill as my primary panini maker? Absolutely not. I like my panini to come out nice and crispy, even if it means waiting 10 minutes or so. Would I use it to make hot sandwiches at work or to reheat pre-grilled panini? Sure! Unlike the microwave alone, the Micro Grill will heat bread without turning it gummy. So if heat, not crispness, is your goal, the Micro Grill handles the task well.

• Bread: Sourdough
• Condiment: Avocado spread
• Meat: Sliced turkey, bacon
• Cheese: Swiss, cheddar
• "Goodies": Tomatoes, Mangoes

THE INSPIRATION: "In Da Club" by 50 Cent, for the Eat to the Beat! blog event.

THE PREPARATION: I thought an avocado spread – basically, a more spreadable guacamole – would not only provide great flavor but add color. To get the smooth consistency I wanted, I pulled my trusty mini-prep food processor out of the appliance wasteland that is my pantry. I pureed a basic guacamole recipe - 1 avocado, a teaspoon of garlic powder, 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt, 1-1/2 teaspoons of fresh lime juice, 2 tablespoons of cilantro – plus added 2 teaspoons of light sour cream for an even creamier texture. A little bland on the first try so I added another 1-1/2 teaspoons of lime juice and that punched things up a bit.

Next, I tackled the "center bread". As you know, a traditional club sandwich is "double-decker", with a bottom piece of bread, fillings, a center piece of bread, more fillings, and a top piece of bread. I wanted to keep this tradition with my panini-style club, but I had some concerns about how the center bread pieces might fare in the pressing. My solution: pre-press them on their own. I lightly pressed them on the panini grill at low heat for about 7 minutes.

THE CONSTRUCTION: I spread about 1-1/2 tablespoons of the avocado spread on the bottom slice of bread, layered on a few slices of quick serve fully-cooked bacon (this is so great to have on hand for making panini!), a few 1/4" slices of mango and a slice of swiss cheese. This comprised the "downstairs" of my sandwich. Next went on the pre-grilled center bread and I built the "upstairs": a thin layer of mayonnaise, turkey breast slices, tomato slices, cheddar and the top bread. This was getting a bit tall! Lastly, I sprayed the top with olive oil cooking spray and grilled on low heat for about 10 minutes. I went "low and slow" to ensure the cheese in the middle of this behemoth had a chance to melt without scorching the bread.

THE RESULTS: Good flavors, texture could use a little help. Despite my pre-grilling, the center bread still got a little mushier than I'd hoped. And then I remembered...I didn't spray any olive oil on it before grilling! An olive oil "barrier" was probably more likely to keep out the extra moisture so I made a note to try that in Attempt #2. Also, I think the juice from the tomatoes may have contributed to the mushiness. This comes straight out of my 7 Tips for Making Great Panini - I should have followed my own advice! One surprising result was the importance of how to arrange the layers to maximize the sandwich's visual appeal. When I cut it in half, the tomato and bacon layers weren't too visible due to how I'd positioned them. The beauty of this sandwich lies in the colorful layers, so that was something else I wanted to rectify. Oh well...on to Attempt #2!

Turkey Mango Double-Decker Club Panini - Attempt #2

I learned my lesson in Attempt #1 and sprayed both sides of my center breads with olive oil this time before grilling. While I was at it, I also sprayed the outside of my bottom bread - it's a little messy to spray the bottoms of these things, but it's worth the extra handwashing to have the nice, crostini-like bread. To make the bacon more visible on the sandwich, I cut each slice in half and made a little carpet of bacon, covering the entire bread. You couldn't miss it now! In place of the mayonnaise, I substituted a second layer of avocado spread - the mayonnaise wasn't adding much flavor and definitely didn't contribute to the colorful presentation. Lastly, I removed the seeds from the tomatoes and made sure they crossed the middle of the sandwich so they would be visible when the sandwich was cut in half.

THE RESULTS: Terrific! The middle bread held up much better this time around with the olive oil. The additional avocado spread added nice flavor and I could now see all the layers when I cut the sandwich in half. The mango is kind of a sweet little surprise in this sandwich - it tastes great with the bacon and is unexpected. All in all, I was proud of this adaptation of the traditional club.

Get the final recipe!

Check out more from the Panini Happy Classics series:

• An Ode (or Two!) to California (BLT)
• In Search of M. Croque (Croque-Monsieur)
• The Taste of Childhood (Peanut Butter & Jelly)

Panini have been around for centuries, and these days they're being grilled up in practically every corner café in America. The popularity of grilling panini at home reached a fever pitch when Oprah Winfrey featured the Breville Ikon Panini Press among her 2007 "favorite things". That model (which I use) and many others began selling out in housewares stores everywhere. Here are 7 tips that will ensure that the panini you make at home are as scrumptious as can be.

Bread

MUST HAVE: Sliced sourdough - it grills well and is also excellent for non-grilled sandwiches and breakfast toast, so you're not likely to waste it
NICE TO HAVE: Pita, rye, ciabatta, focaccia, raisin bread, puff pastry, english muffins, french rolls

Cheese

MUST HAVE: Sliced cheddar - goes well with many types of sandwiches, or great as a snack on its own
NICE TO HAVE: Asiago, mozzarella, pepper jack, blue cheese, swiss, havarti, gruyere, provolone

Meat

MUST HAVE: Deli meats - any deli meat can be a good candidate for panini
NICE TO HAVE: Rotisserie chicken, fish filets, eggs, bacon, prosciutto, flank or skirt steak, turkey, shrimp, pulled pork

Condiments

MUST HAVE: Mustard, mayonnaise, olive oil, butter - these versatile ingredients are great accompaniments to nearly all types of panini
NICE TO HAVE: Pesto spread, olive tapenade, sundried tomato spread, mango chutney, peanut butter, preserves

"Goodies"

Often it's the "extras" that make the sandwich: red onion, avocado, apples, spinach, arugula, tomatoes, chocolate

Stock your refrigerator and pantry and get grilling!

• NEW! How to Make Panini
• 7 Tips for Making Great Panini
• The Grill Method Smackdown