Day Sixty - A Roasted GCF

Happy GCF folks! Can you believe it's already time again for another one of our Grilled Cheese Fridays!? I cannot believe quite how quickly the week went by! What an insane week though, how often do we have weeks where the temperature varies by fifty degrees, not very often, that's for sure. One really good result of our soaring temperatures this week was that Central Park certainly went from Winter to Spring. I always fall in love with New York a little more every spring when the trees and flowers are in full bloom, makes you feel lucky to be a New Yorker. Granted, today certainly was not a day to go for a stroll in the park, but a perfect day to curl up under the covers, watch a movie, with a nice glass of wine and a comforting grilled cheese.

So let's get to it!

Today's GCF will be made on a rosemary foccacia base, with a semi-soft exterior and interior, and with a sufficient amount of olive oil baked into the bread which will complement the sandwich's ingredients perfectly. To start off, I recommend getting some of the extra wide and large carrots found at the Greenmarket in Union Square. To get started, peel and slice them length wise. Toss them with some extra virgin olive oil, garlic, fresh rosemary, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper and roast for about 20 to 25 minutes till they are lightly browned. Meanwhile, seeing as GCF's are meant to not be overly time consuming and roasting carrots for 20 to 25 minutes is somewhat time consuming, we will go with the easy route for the rest of the sandwich. Grab a smallish jar of roasted red peppers or if you're in a cooking mode, roast your own! These will be the base for the roast pepper feta spread that will go on the sandwich. To make the spread, start by tossing the red peppers in the food processor with three quarters of a pound of feta cheese, one clove of garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, about a half a cup of pine nuts, some red pepper flakes to add that nice little bite, and maybe even a dash of paprika for the unexpected. Blend together. Now lather this spread on both sides of the sandwich and to top it off, you want two cheeses -- a nicely aged Parmesan to add a nutty, caramelly, butterscotch-y, and barnyard-y, edge to the sandwich and the other, an easily meltable cheese, a nice young Pecorino like a Toscano Fresco Pecorino. This sheep's milk baby is aged just thirty to sixty days and is creamy, sweet, bright and clean, perfect to go with our spread. I like to place one cheese on each side of the sandwich. Now pull out those roasted carrots and place them on top of one side of the sandwich and top with a handful for arugula, somewhat bitter, refined, and delish, this will complement and balance out the natural sugars that have been released from roasting your carrots. Now its time to heat your sandwich and serve! Depending on your mood, I would probably pair this with a medium bodied wine like a Trebbiano. But seeing as it is a GCF, feel free to eat this with your beverage of choice after a long week!