My sisters and I would always urge our mom to start at the deli when we accompanied her to the supermarket growing up. Actually, we referred to it “The delicatessen!”,  another one of those words (like “pocketbook”, “dungarees” and “tunafish”) that my family brought over to California from New York. Whatever you want to call it, we loved the counter for one reason: the samples. My mom would buy the cold cuts for the week (we knew this as “lunch meat”) and inevitably the clerk would run a few extra slices for us to snack on. This would buy my mom a few minutes of calm while she attempted to shop with three kids in tow.

It was during one of these childhood delicatessen sampling sessions that I first tried Jarlsberg cheese. It had holes and a cool name that started with a “j” even though it sounded like it should start with a “y”. It wasn’t bright yellow, square shaped and individually-wrapped and no one in my Girl Scout troop had ever heard of it. This was some fancy cheese. And I declared it as my favorite.

As we get ready to wrap up National Grilled Cheese Month, I wanted to share my recipe for Grilled Jarlsberg with Shaved Asparagus and Lemony Arugula Pesto as well as a Grilled Cheese Kit Giveaway (including a skillet, cheese, grater and cookbook!), courtesy of Jarlsberg USA. Read on for both! [THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED]

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I’m sure you won’t mind if we step away from the panini grill for a moment…to focus our attention on chocolate chip cookies! If you’ve ever tasted the thin, crispy, buttery, I-defy-you-to-stop-at-just-one chocolate chip cookies from Tate’s Bake Shop then you know what a treat the lucky winner of today’s giveaway is in for.

I had heard so many great things about Tate’s Bake Shop, based in Southampton, New York, from my blogging friends that I was eager to finally try them myself. They really are that good – refreshingly simple, traditional chocolate chip cookies made with quality ingredients. I’m not usually a dunker, but these really are the type of chocolate chip cookies that beg for a tall, cold glass of milk. Anything that will allow you to stop and savor them for a little bit longer (because the temptation to just devour these is very strong!).

Tate’s Bake Shop would love to send one lucky reader their Valentine’s Day Cube Tower (pictured above). Each box holds approximately 7 cookies. Read on to enter the giveaway…plus get a $10 coupon code to shop at the Tate’s Bake Shop website. [THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED]

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Maybe it’s because I blog about sandwiches or because I shop often for toys but I’ve started noticing quite a lot of sandwich toys on the market these days. I enlisted the help of my 4-year old daughter and 2-year old son to help me test out four fun-looking sandwich toys I’ve come across lately. If you’ve got any food-loving children (or kids at heart) on your holiday shopping list you’ll definitely want to look into these. PLUS…

**Win These Sandwich Toys!**

At the end of this post you’ll have the chance to enter to win the toys that I’ve featured – from brands including Melissa & Doug, Green Toys, Gamewright and Handstand Kids. Read on!

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We’ve got teeny tiny grilled cheese sandwiches floating in our soup today! And a Panini Press giveaway sponsored by Sargento!

I was first captivated by the idea of grilled cheese croutons on Pinterest and could not wait to make some of my own. Grilled cheese and tomato soup was my all-time favorite “special” lunch growing up (and probably still is today). It was a back-to-school lunch that I didn’t actually eat at school, as it was a challenge to keep a sandwich warm during the school day and forget about trying to wrangle a hot soup in a Thermos. It was a special treat for the weekends.

Now that my own kids are starting school this week (well, preschool, but they’re excited) I’m looking forward to continuing the grilled cheese and tomato soup weekend tradition. For my Grilled Tomato Soup, I first grilled the tomatoes and onions on the panini press to help bring out their sweetness. I’ve made this soup a number of times now – including for a group of San Diego food bloggers – and everyone has loved it. I made my Grilled Cheese Croutons with Sargento Colby-Jack cheese on sourdough bread with some fresh herb butter on the outside to make them extra-crisp and savory.

Read on for my Grilled Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons recipe and a chance to win a Breville Panini Press (like the one I use!), sponsored by Sargento.

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“It’s a Lunchables for foodies!”

My husband’s reaction to the cheese and salami plate I painstakingly assembled the other day was spot on. This was definitely my idea of an excellent lunch: a platter full of six types of salami, three amazing cheeses, sweet honeycomb, spicy mustard, marcona almonds (forgot to include in the photos – oops!) and grilled slices of baguette with olive oil. Positively grazeworthy!

Read on for my tips for putting together a fabulous cheese and salami plate, plus a salami GIVEAWAY from Columbus Salame.

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How cute are these panini toppers?! All you need are some toothpicks, a glue stick and the free template download I’m sharing today (designed by Petite Lemon Prints exclusively for Panini Happy) and you can adorn your sandwiches with seven different little love notes like “I Melt For You!”, “You ImPRESS Me” and “XOXO”. Read on for the download and a $50 Petite Lemon giveaway! [THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED]
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They grow up so fast, don’t they?

I’m excited to celebrate Panini Happy’s 3rd blogiversary with the launch of a cool project…and I’m going to need your help! The Panini Happy Guides to Great Sandwiches will be a set of free mobile sandwich guides, organized by metro area. They’ll feature favorite sandwiches from all over the country and where to find them – all recommended by you, the Panini Happy community. Better yet, with the help of the location app Foodspotting, we’ll be able to access the guides on our mobile phones, so whether we’re close to home or traveling we’ll always know where we can go for a good sandwich.

[THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED] Enter to win a $100 Williams-Sonoma Gift Card and help create the Panini Happy sandwich guides!

• Leave a comment on this post sharing the name or description of your favorite sandwich, the eatery/city/state where you get it and any words of advice. (Ex: “The turkey jalapeño sandwich at Deli Wishes in Carlsbad, CA – I order it on sourdough. Get ready, it’s spicy!“) NOTE: Any kind of sandwich is fine, they do not need to be panini.
• You may submit up to 5 different sandwiches, leaving a separate comment for each (max. 5 entries).
• The giveaway closes on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 12 PM PST. One entry will be selected via random.org to receive the $100 Williams-Sonoma gift card and will be posted here on that day. The giveaway is open to anyone, but for this initial launch of the guides please submit sandwiches/eateries that are located in the U.S. and Canada.

More details to come about the guides in the coming weeks!

***UPDATE 1/21/10: Congratulations to the gift card winner!

Many congrats to Mary (#205)! I happen to agree wholeheartedly with her sandwich suggestion (I visited both of these places on my last trip to San Francisco):

“Boccalone Salumeria in San Francisco’s Ferry Building! They have an assortment of hot and cold sandwiches – one of my favorite being the hot prosciutto cotto with provolone and whole grain mustard. Another fun thing to do is to order their platter with a variety of meats, then head down to Cowgirl Creamery for your cheese and then Acme Bread for some sourdough and head outside to enj0y your lunch by the water!”

Thank you so much for all of your wonderful recommendations, everyone. This sandwich guide is going to be superb, thanks to all of you!

Thanks to Williams-Sonoma for providing the gift card for this giveaway.

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Thanks to all who participated in the Windows Phone 7 “Do More With Less” giveaway. You shared an unbelievable variety of ways to use up leftovers – this is definitely a community of folks who don’t let good things go to waste.

Congratulations to entrant #66, Ciara - your new Windows Phone 7 is on its way!

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Today’s post is sponsored by the new Windows Phone 7.

If MTV’s Cribs ever visited our house I would have to dash over to block their cameras from filming the fridge. No meticulously organized shelves full of Vitamin Water and Heineken here. At any given moment, we’ve got half a dozen little Tupperware containers of last night’s roast chicken, steamed veggies for the baby, half a block of Gruyère, that hummus experiment – a random assortment of odds and ends just begging to be combined into a new meal. Like, say…panini?

In conjunction with the launch of the Windows Phone 7, the folks at Microsoft are coordinating with me and 57 other food and lifestyle bloggers (see the official rules for a list of all the participating bloggers) to give away their new smartphones to our readers and challenged us to write a post on the theme of “doing more with less”. I’ll share with you how I turned leftover cornbread and pulled pork into Pulled Pork Cornbread Panini with Caramelized Onions and Pepper Jack in a minute. First, here are the details on the giveaway.

To enter the Windows Phone 7 giveaway:

• Leave a comment on this post, sharing your favorite way to use up leftovers.
• You can enter once per day until the contest ends on Monday, November 29, 2010. (For even more chances to win, I’m giving away another phone on Cooking On the Side)
  
• One entry on this blog will be selected at random to win a brand-new Windows Phone 7. Please note that the phone will ship within 8-10 weeks.
• The official rules can be found here.

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Thanks to all who shared their weeknight dinner strategies in last week’s “Let’s Fix Dinner” giveaway. I was so inspired by your insightful advice that I decided to compile them in an upcoming post – stay tuned!

Random.org selected entry #3 to win the limited edition “Let’s Fix Dinner” children’s book and placemats by Todd Parr – congratulations to Celeste!

“Get Dinner on the Table” month has only just begun – I’ve got more giveaways, recipes and tips to come. And, yes, we’re going to be using the panini press!

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