My friend Skeet issued a challenge to another blogger, Jenn, on whose grilled cheese and bacon sandwich is the best. I had to throw in my 2 cents because I think mine is the best! Well, now it’s a 3 way challenge and we need our readers to pick the winning grilled cheese and bacon sandwich. We have all decided to let you all pick the best one.

Here are The Rules:
1. Go to each of the recipe links:

Jenn: Recipe Challenge-Grilled Cheese and Bacon Sandwich

Charlotte: Grilled Cheese and Bacon Sandwich

Skeet: Grilled Cheese and Bacon Sandwich-Illustrated

2. Make the sandwiches.

3. Write a post about your experience and name the recipe that you think is best.

4. Go to all three contest announcements and give a link to your post in the comments for each one: (I’ll link the other contest posts as soon as they’re up.)

Jenn: A Contest and a Challenge - Win a Cookbook!

Charlotte: You’re reading it now.

Skeet: Grilled Cheese and Bacon Throw Down - Win a Cookbook!

Deadline:
You must complete the process by posting your comments to each of our blogs by midnight EST on Sunday, November 4th.

Prizes:
Charlotte, Jenn and Skeet will each draw a name from among the entrants and will reward a cookbook to that lucky winner. Bonus! Want an extra entry? When you write your post, include a picture of at least one of the sandwiches you made.

Eligibility:
The contest is open to anyone with a US or Canadian mailing address. We have nothing against the rest of you, but postage, taxes and customs requirements could turn this into a major hassle instead of a fun contest.

The Prize:

This cookbook contains Best of the Best from the Mid-Atlantic Cookbook: Selected Recipes from the Favorite Cookbooks of Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. This will go to the winner. Good luck and happy cooking!

My friend Skeet is having a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich cook off with another blogger to see who makes theirs the best. Well, I decided to jump in on it too since I make mine differently than Skeet or Jenn does. I think mine is superior of course. This is how my mom always made grilled cheese sandwiches but without the bacon.

Here is how I make mine. I take pre-cooked bacon, yes.. I cheat there, put the 3 strips on parchment paper and put it on a paper towel and pop it into the microwave for 30 seconds. Then I take the bacon off the parchment and pat them with more paper towels to soak up the excess grease.

Then I take 2 slices of potato bread, or white bread, sometimes even Italian bread and spread a little butter on both slices to hold everything together while it’s cooking. If I don’t do that things tend to slide around. Then I put a slice of white American cheese, not the processed stuff, on each piece of bread. Black Bear American cheese is the best… it has a slight cheddary taste to it.

Next I layer on the bacon. Then I have to keep arranging it and re-arranging it so it looks pretty! It just has to look pretty! Then I put the 2 pieces of bread together and spread some butter on the top. I just have to have a buttery grilled cheese and bacon sandwich!

Put some butter in the pan to melt. Then gently put the sandwich into the pan un-buttered side down. Keep checking the bottom so it doesn’t burn. Burnt grilled cheese and bacon is just nasty! Turn it over when it’s just perfectly browned. Don’t forget to mush it down with the spatula!

When the bottom is nice and brown, take it out of the pan and put it on a plate. Slice it anyway you like it.. straight down the middle… on a diagonal or in quarters. I like to have chips with mine. Sometimes I like to slide a chip or two right into the middle of that gooey goodness. Yummm!

Click on the pictures in this post to see the full sized images!

My mom always made the most delicious cookies for us. They were Toll House cookies, a delicious chocolate chip cookie. She would spend hours making these cookies. Any time I would hear her mixer going I knew she was making something delicious! It wasn’t an Eclectrics® Mixer either. This was the 50’s, her mixer was old then! Below is the recipe for Toll House Cookies.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks, 1/2 pound) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated [white] sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12-ounce package) NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 cup chopped nuts *optional*

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large mixer bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE in preheated 375-degree [Fahrenheit] oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

PAN COOKIE VARIATION: PREPARE dough as above. Spread into greased 15″x10″ jelly-roll pan. Bake in preheated 375-degree [Fahrenheit] oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack.

FOR HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING (>5,200 feet): INCREASE flour to 2 1/2 cups; add 2 teaspoonfuls water with flour; reduce both granulated sugar and brown sugar to 2/3 cup each. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, drop cookies for 8 to 10 minutes and pan cookies for 17 to 19 minutes.

My mixer used to be my mom’s. It’s old. Andi used it one time and the spatula slipped and got caught in the beaters and bent them. I managed to straighten them out but they’re still bent a bit. This mixer certainly isn’t a Hamilton Beach® Mixer, but I wish it was. The beaters are made of a thicker metal than the one I have. The Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer has professional 2-way rotating mixing action, a stainless steel 4.5 quart bowl, a quick-release tilt-up head, a pouring shield, 3 mixing accessories, a locking bowl and 400 Watts of power. This is my dream machine!

PREP TIME: 15 Minutes
COOK TIME: 43 Minutes

5 tbsp. butter
1 (2lb) butternut squash, peeled & chopped into medium sized pieces
2 tbsp. sugar
Sea Salt
1 small onion, chopped
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup heavy cream
White pepper
Ground nutmeg (optional)

Melt butter over very low heat in a soup pot. Add the squash, sugar and salt to taste. Cook and stir. Cook covered for 3 minutes until soft but not browned.

Add onion and cook and stir 10 more minutes. Add 1 quart (4 cups) of water and the cinnamon stick. Simmer covered for 30 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick.

Puree the soup in a blender for at least 1 minute. Then pass though a fine meshed strainer. Finish with the cream then salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately, sprinkled with nutmeg, if desired.

Makes 8 servings.

I wrote a post about a frozen hamburger recall. I read in the paper yesterday that the Topps Company, who is the company who produced those burgers, has gone out of business. The Topps company is located in Elizabeth, NJ. This company has been in business for 67 years. This caused 87 people to become unemployed. 30 people in 8 states came down with E. Coli infections from eating those hamburgers. Luckily no one died.

I still have a box in my freezer that wasn’t included in the recall. I probably will throw it out even though I’ve cooked and eaten one hamburger and didn’t get sick. I just don’t want to take the risk.

This place needs new faucets. They’re so old. The faucet in the kitchen leaks when you move the spout. That makes such a big mess! The bathroom faucets aren’t much better. I’d love to get the landlord to install a new Moen faucet in the kitchen and bathroom. He could get a good deal and a wide selection of faucets at Faucet.com. He could get free shipping if he spends $199.00.

It’s not like I want faucets that would require a loan to be taken out! I just want faucets that don’t leak all over the place! He could get some at a reasonable price at Faucets.com. Maybe if I give everyone his address, you could all help me out and send him letters asking him to buy me new faucets? *Ya’ll know I’m joking, right?*

I was shocked when I saw this! I have a box in my freezer right now.

FROZEN GROUND BEEF PRODUCT RECALL

OCTOBER 1, 2007

Topps Meat Company, LLC, of Elizabeth, New Jersey is voluntarily recalling approximately 21.7 million pounds of frozen ground beef products because of possible contamination with E.coli 0157:H7.

Each package bears the establishment number “Est. 9748” inside the USDA mark of inspection. Production dates between “SEP 25 06” and “SEP 25 07”. Sell –by dates between “SEP 25 07” and SEP 25 08”.

The recalled products are sold under the following product names:

Mike’s Seasoned Beef Patties: 3lb and 5lb boxes.

Pathmark 100% All Beef Burgers: 3lb, 5lb and 10lb boxes.

Rastelli’s Fine Foods 100% Premium Beef Hamburgers: 10lb boxes of 3.2oz, 4oz, 6oz (80/20, 85/15), 8oz, and 10oz product.

Roma-Topps 100% Premium Hamburger: 10lb boxes of 2oz, 3.2oz, 4oz, 5oz, 5.3oz, 6oz, 7oz, 8oz (flat and H), and 10oz product.

Sam’s Choice Backyard Gourmet Beef Burgers: 3lb bags (75/25, 80/20, 85/15) and 6lb bags of quarter pound round patties.

Sand Castle Fine Meat 100% Premium Beef Hamburger: 10lb boxes of 3.2oz, 4oz (80/20, 85/15), 6oz (80/20, 85/15), 8oz (75/25, 80/20), and 10oz product.

Sand Castle Fine Meat Angus Chuck Burger: 10lb boxes of 8oz product.

Topps Sirloin Steak Burgers with fire-roasted onions: 2lb box

Topps Sirloin Steak Burgers with portabella mushrooms: 2lb box

Topps Sirloin Steak Burgers Homestyle: 2lb box

Topps 100% Premium Hamburger: 10lb boxes of 1oz, 2oz, 2.67oz, 3oz, 4oz, 4oz (flat), 5oz, 6oz (5/8 inch, 85/15, homestyle, pub burger), 7oz, 7oz (75/25), and 8oz product.

Topps 100% Pure Ground Beef Hamburgers: 1.5lb box of 3oz product.

Topps 100% Pure Ground Beef Hamburgers: 2lb box of 3oz product.

Topps 100% Pure Ground Beef Hamburgers: 2lb box of 8 quarter pounders.

Topps 100% Pure Ground Beef Hamburgers: 3lb boxes of 6oz pub burgers, 12 quarter pounders, and 16 hamburgers.

Topps 100% Pure Ground Beef Hamburgers: 5lb box of 20 quarter pounders.

Topps 100% Pure Ground Beef Hamburgers: 8lb box of 32 quarter pounders.

Topps 100% Premium Hamburgers: 10lb boxes of 3.2oz, 4oz, 5oz, and 8oz product.

West Side 100% Premium Hamburger: 10lb boxes of 3oz, 3.2oz, 4oz, 5oz, 6oz, 6oz (flat), and 8oz (flat).

Butcher’s Best 100% All Beef Patties: 10lb boxes of 4oz, and 6oz (75/25) product.

Kohler Foods: 10lb boxes of 4oz , 6oz, and 8oz product.

**Any items that you identify from this list need to be returned to the place where you purchased them.**

**just checked mine.. my sell by date is July 9, 2008**