GASTRONORMOUS

I knew the Hubs would be working late last night, so I wanted to prepare something that I could eat when I wanted, but would also be enjoyable hours later when he came home. After some mild brain-racking and multiple fridge-surveys, I finally decided on a new take on my curried lentil and chick pea salad, and to go with it, some chutney and cheddar grilled sandwiches. I am not generally a big sandwich-for-dinner person, but on this particularly hot and muggy evening, I wanted to make something easy, filling, and requiring only a minimum of stove time, and a salad and grilled sandwiches fit that bill.

The salad recipe isn’t worth repeating here as it utilizes basically the same ingredients and technique as before, but with a couple additions, and slightly different proportions. The dish is really quite malleable and hard to mess up, so if you want to try this, I encourage you to play with my original recipe, using whatever additions or substitutions that sound good to you.

Varying from the original, I used a little less mayo and more oil and vinegar, plus I used white navy beans in place of both lentils and chick peas, I left out the artichoke hearts, and added lots of carrots and celery (in a small dice). The resulting dish had an about equal ratio of carrots, celery, and beans. The salad was delicious, and had a great, satisfying crunch provided by the heavy addition of fresh veggies. We ate this salad two nights in a row, and it was even better the second night! So go ahead and make it in advance if you can plan ahead better than I!

If you have ever had a ploughman’s lunch at a pub, you know what Branston Pickle is. It is actually more of a chutney than what Americans think of as a pickle, but it goes really well with cheese. When I eyed the jar of mango chutney I happened to have in the refrigerator, I thought of the ploughman’s flavor combo, and decided to give it a spin on the grill, along with some aged cheddar cheese and some hearty pumpernickel bread. It was really tasty, and the vaguely Indian-ish flavors paired well with my curried bean salad. This combo of cheese and chutney would also be great as a quesadilla or on some crusty white bread.

I was able to prepare everything for the sandwiches in advance, so that when the Hubs came home, it was just a matter of firing up my trusty grill, and throwing the sandwich on it for a few minutes. It ended up being a quick and tasty meal, one that would only have been more enjoyable if he and I had eaten it together!

Some grilled cheese tips.

• Spread a really thin schmear of softened butter on the outside-facing side of each slice of bread (rather than putting butter on the grill or pan) in order for the sandwich to evenly brown.
• As tempting as it is, only press down on the sandwich if the bread is really thickly cut.
• When using cheese other than American, shredding the cheese works better than slicing. It can be a little trickier to get onto the grill without cheese falling out, but it melts in a much more even layer, ensuring cheese in every bite!