I never need much of an excuse to make grilled cheese, but a rainy day is about as perfect an excuse as you’re gonna get. The sky just opened up outside the coffee shop where I’m sitting right now. This is newsworthy stuff in San Diego.

I surprised even myself when I first decided to make these Wild Mushroom Melt Panini. Me, the one who is more commonly known to remove mushrooms from dishes. I’ll say this, though. In my experience, there aren’t many foods that can’t be remarkably enhanced by sautéing them in olive oil and butter with garlic and shallots and finishing them with some balsamic vinegar. Mushrooms, it turns out, are no exception.

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You need the moody backdrop of a brisk, misty, gray Seattle day to truly appreciate an amazing grilled cheese sandwich, I’ve come to realize. Trudging through the bustling, crowded stalls of Pike Place Market during the Saturday afternoon rush last weekend with my new friend Christie from Pepper Lynn, I saw a beacon of light shining from Beecher’s Handmade Cheese across the street. Grilled cheese to the rescue.

Beecher’s and its award-winning Flagship aged cheddar cheese were familiar to me both through a reader’s recommendation in my Great American Sandwich Guide as well as from the episode of Oprah where Gayle King explored her favorite mac and cheese dishes around the country (yes, there was a time in my life when I watched a whole lot of Oprah). Their simplest grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup (with cheese croutons) sounded like the best thing in the world to me at that moment so I ordered them.

And loved them. So much so that within a day of returning home to San Diego I found a block of Beecher’s in my local grocery cheese department and grilled myself another sandwich so I could experience more of that incredibly sharp, tangy, nutty fabulousness. A few days later I dared to go one step further and gave the sandwich a sweet and crunchy honey walnut butter crust (and posted a photo on Instagram and Facebook – people loved it!). So I’m happy to share my Honey Walnut-Crusted Aged Cheddar Panini recipe with you today, along with a few more scenes from my recent escape to Seattle.

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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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Rajas…isn’t it great when you can finally put a name to something you’ve been eating forever? I never knew until about a year ago that bold-flavored strips of roasted chiles and onions are called rajas. I made the connection not in the context of rajas con crema or any other traditional Mexican dish. Nope, my first exposure to the term rajas came with fries.

There was a long line of people waiting for the Rajas Fries from LA’s Frysmith at a food truck event I attended a while back. This dish, their most popular, consists of “fire-roasted poblano chiles, caramelized onions and shawarma-marinated steak with Jack cheese”. Over fries. Sounded amazing to this fry fan.

I made it to the front of the line and I had to crane my neck to make eye contact with the guy taking the orders (food truck windows are so high up!). I’d never heard the term rajas before. I debated in my head whether this was a Spanish word and therefore I should pronounce it “rrrrah-has” or if it was some other language and I should just hit it with a regular ol’ American “rah-jas”. Taking a cue from the poblanos and out of respect for the seven years of Spanish I took in school, I went with a tentative “rah-has”. Phew! The guy repeated it back to me the same way. Hurdle surmounted.

Take it from someone who usually doesn’t even add so much as ketchup to fries (I’m a fry purist), these rajas-and-marinated-steak-loaded fries were crazy good! Just to be clear, the roasted poblanos aren’t especially spicy, but they bring a ton of flavor and just a hint of heat.

In celebration of National Grilled Cheese Month, Tillamook asked me to contribute a recipe for the Grilled Cheese Recipepalooza feature on their Loaf Life blog. When I saw that pepper jack these was among their cheeses I could choose from, I immediately thought of the rajas from Frysmith to pair with it. I grilled the onions and peppers in minutes right on the panini maker. With the addition of pepper jack, things do start to get a little spicier so if you’d rather keep it on the cooler side go for regular Monterey Jack.

Read on for my Rajas Grilled Cheese Panini recipe…plus the chance to win a Tillamook Cheese Deli Sampler Gift Box! [THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED]

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We’re almost halfway through April – it’s about time we started celebrating National Grilled Cheese Month, don’t you think? Today – April 12 – has been designated (by whom, I don’t know) as National Grilled Cheese Day, which I suppose makes it an especially important day within Grilled Cheese Month.

We’ve got an especially delicious sandwich to kick off the celebration on Panini Happy – Grilled Gruyère with Red Onion Confit  - as well as my interview with  the owner of my favorite cheese shop here in San Diego, Gina Freize of Venissimo Cheese (this is one of the sandwiches they love to serve at their shops). Gina - whose official company title is “Cheese Wiz” – has a passion  for cheese that you can hear in her voice. She has channeled that passion into a successful business, which in the past 8 years has expanded to four locations within Southern California. Gina and I had the chance to chat all about cheese: the best way to store it, which cheeses melt best for grilled cheese sandwiches, how we can learn about cheese, and more.

What led you to enter the cheese business?

It was pure love of cheese, my absolute favorite food in the world. Growing up, if there was ice cream in the freezer or cheese in the fridge, that cheese was mine, no question. It really was that love. My mom is from Austria so we have relatives over there. Having traveled there and seeing the cheese shops – the light bulb went off, “Why don’t we have cheese shops here? I love cheese. This is a business to have.” So that’s what started it all.

When did you open Venissimo?

The very first Venissimo was in Mission Hills and that opened January 17, 2004. We’ve had more than 2,000 different cheeses come through since.

Whether we’re buying an artisanal cheese from a specialty cheese shop like Venissimo or picking up something more everyday the grocery store, what are some good tips for storing cheese that will allow it to taste its best?

At Venissimo we have that special cheese wrap paper that lets the cheese breathe a little. But if you buy something shrink-wrapped from the grocery store get it out of that tight plastic and wrap it in waxed paper or even put it in a Tupperware-type container that gives the cheese a little bit of air to breathe but also seals it off. That’s what you’re after to store the cheese.

It’s so fascinating, the tighter and longer the cheese is wrapped in plastic the quicker it goes bad. It really does suffocate the cheese. It also impacts the flavor. Just like you wrap other foods in plastic it kind of takes on a plastic taste. It’s no different with cheese. Giving it a little air to breathe lets it smell and taste the way it should.

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You can’t pinch this blog – I’m wearing my St. Patrick’s Day green this week! There’s nothing especially Irish about these Grilled Asparagus Tartines with Fresh Ricotta, Pesto and Scallions, but they usher in spring with plenty of bright green color, crunchy texture and fresh flavor.

And, by the way, that’s homemade ricotta on there!

Ever since my mozzarella cheesemaking escapade I’ve been eager to try making ricotta. Everyone says it’s way better than the packaged stuff, and they were so right. The homemade ricotta actually tasted more like milk and less like salt compared to the kind I usually buy. Texture-wise, it was softer – closer to a really small-curd cottage cheese. A recipe for 5-minute ricotta I found on Serious Eats called for just milk, vinegar and salt – I couldn’t resist giving it a try. It doesn’t make much – just half a cup – but it’s enough to provide a creamy base for these terrific tartines.

This was the most fresh-tasting little sandwich snack I’ve had in a while. I made them in full sandwich size, but you could easily make a mini crostini version and serve them as green springtime appetizers. Enjoy!

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I don’t know exactly how many panini recipes I’ve posted featuring cheddar and apples (four come to mind) but it’s got to be one of my favorite combinations. I couldn’t help but come up with yet one more once I read this Rosemary Apple Butter Grilled Cheese post on Framed Cooks. The addition of fragrant, woodsy rosemary sounded just brilliant.

I sought to integrate this perennial herb into my latest cheddar-and-apples panini in two ways. First, I tossed together some rosemary candied pecans to add a little sweet crunch and gentle heat (I spiced them with cayenne as well) to the sandwiches (caution: these pecans are very addictive!). Second, I grilled it all on buttered rosemary bread.

I’m sharing the recipe for these Cheddar and Apple Butter Panini with Rosemary Candied Pecans over on Herbivoracious today – be sure to check out my guest post!