Boy Food/Meatball Subs

I haven't figured out why the notion of a girl's night usually conjures up images of cute little PJs, homemade facials and pillow fights. Sorry for the bad news, but reality is far from that; most 'girls nights' I have are neither called that nor do they involve any of this allegedly girly behavior. Take the other night for example, a few of my friends and I got together to eat meatball subs, watch The Hurt Locker, burp and act totally ungirly. In my experience this is much more honest picture of reality; girl's nights are an opportunity to relax and be yourself and most importantly, a chance to enjoy somewhat sloppy, messy food without caring about the sauce on your chin or the crumbs on your lap.

In this vein, I can confirm that homemade meatball subs are the ideal messy food to indulge in with girlfriends and in our case the casual, homey food was the perfect complement to an intense and suspenseful movie. The idea for meatball subs actually came to me when I was in a Subway with two friends the other day; one of them told me that she had always wanted to try a meatball sub. I begged her to let me make them rather than letting her get one at Subway or any other commercial enterprise. I knew that my own version would be far superior in flavor and quality and I couldn't bear to let my friend scar her taste buds with a commercial version of this classic Italo-American dish.

I don't know about my friends, but these subs far exceeded my expectations and I think that a huge part of that is because I did not skimp on a single component. Hoagie rolls were turned into garlic bread before being smothered with huge meatballs and a rich butter and onion spiked tomato sauce.

Easy Bread/English Muffins

Between my fear of baking with yeast, my finicky oven and my overall belief that homemade bread is never as good as something fresh from a boulangerie, I almost never make my own bread. That being said, after the challah, the pretzels, and now these english muffins, my fear of yeast is essentially overcome and I am looking forward to the day that I have an oven powerful enough (and kind enough) to form a crusty brown loaf from a ball of perfectly risen dough. In the meantime I am finding loopholes, ways to get over my fear of yeast without worrying about the repercussions of a weak oven.

Enter the english muffin. About five years ago when I saw Alton Brown making english muffins on Good Eats, I knew I would have to make them one day. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I finally gave his recipe a go; it was an utter disaster. I almost blamed myself and gave up, but the truth is I just didn't like the recipe. There was just way to much yeast giving these an overly sour, raw flavor and a gooey, under risen texture. Instead of giving up, I forged on and did some more research and noticed that most recipes used at least two times as much flour for the same amount of yeast! It really wasn't my fault, the proportions were off as I had thought and I comforted myself by realizing that maybe I do know a thing or two about bread making.

The second round yielded ideal results, I used half the amount of yeast, replaced half the flour with whole wheat flour and wound up with beautiful, toasty, fork-splittable disks that are as good for absorbing melting butter as they are for making a sandwich.

Classics/Grilled Cheese + Tomato Soup

I have been itching to make grilled cheese and tomato soup for a while now, especially as winter progresses and food needs to be increasingly comforting to ease those winter blues. For the same reason, I also feel that this meal should be a communal experience; it's good when you're alone, but better when you're surrounded by friends. Imagine my surprise when I sat down to dinner, dipped the crispy point of my grilled cheese into my soup and my friend looked at me and said "hmm, that seems like a good idea!" I was shocked, apparently in Canada grilled cheese and tomato soup is not a classic combination. The two are well loved but as separate, albeit delicious, entities. Well all I have to say about that is that my Canadian friends have been missing out one of the best classic comfort foods I know.

At the very moment my friend said that I was slightly appalled and saddened by the cultural divide. That being said, I was glad that I got a chance to share some American culinary classics with our friends up north. The truth is, however, that for me these grilled cheese sandwiches have a much more convoluted cultural history.