Grilled Cheese Gone Wild!

Sure, mom’s buttery white bread and American cheese version is a classic, but these days grilled cheese has hit a whole new level. Here are some of our favorite crazy grilled cheese options.

1. Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese

Can’t decide between your two favorite cheesy snacks? Have them both with Simply Scratch’s simply amazing jalapeno-cream cheese-onion-sourdough-colby concoction.

2. Fried Green Tomato Grilled Cheese

Fried inside fried? Yes and yes. Life’s Ambrosia has the recipe.

3. Bechamel Grilled Cheese

You thought rubbing a layer of butter on grilled cheese was indulgent? At Firefly in D.C., chef Danny Bortnick’s cadillac grilled cheese has bechamel sauce spread in between white bread, with garlic-herb butter, aged Cabot, and Gruyere.

(Photo: Dakota Fine)

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Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know Taste Delicious With Chocolate

There’s nothing better than chocolate, right? Or is there? Foodies have figured out that everyone’s favorite candy gets even better when combined with some surprising ingredients. Here are our top 10 favorite crazy chocolate recipes.

10. Avocado

It might sound gross, but avo mixed with chocolate chips makes an amazingly rich filling for Russell Warnick’s chocolate avocado pie.

 9. Eggplant

No, this is not a joke. Just give it a try. Salted fried eggplant drizzled with dark chocolate, from What You Give Away You Keep.

8. Goat Cheese

Chocolate is great. Cheese is great. Why the eff not? Macheesmo makes goat cheese raspberry brownies.

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Cocktail O’Clock: Happy Repeal Day

The worst thing about Monday is that even though it’s universally acknowledged as the hardest day of the week, it’s somehow also the one on which it’s least socially acceptable to drink.

But wait a minute — us boozehounds have the upper hand this week, because Monday marks the 78th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition, which we’re pretty sure is a national holiday. Enjoy this original cocktail recipe — The Rodriguez Sour — from Kevin Diedrich of Jasper’s Corner Tap & Kitchen in San Francisco, or find your favorite poison in Endless Cocktails.

Rodriguez Sour

2 oz Partida Blanco tequila
.75 oz Lime
.75 oz Pineapple juice
.5 oz Jalapeno syrup
.25 oz Green Chartreuse

Shake all ingredients together.

Strain and pour into a rocks glass.

Garnish with slices of jalapeño.

Mudslides Gone Wild!

If you’ve read ES for, oh, 30 seconds or so, you probably know that we like cooking with booze. And no one does it better than our own bakers royale, who has found not 1, not 2, but 4 ways (so far) to turn a mudslide cocktail into a delicious dessert. Let’s take a moment to say bravo. And yum.

1. Mudslide Cupcake

Chocolate cake plus buttercream frosting infused with homemande Bailey’s, chocolate and kahlua. Bet you’re sorry you said you were over cupcakes now, huh?

2. Mudslide Ice Cream Cake

Take that kahlua, chocolate and Bailey’s, infuse it into some ice cream, and shape it into a cake.

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Food Porn Champion: A Stand-Up Salad

At Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, the salads are as sexy as any steak around.

Getting Busy With the Fizzy

One of the most popular holiday presents for foodies in recent years has been the Sodastream machine. These $100 seltzer makers are new, trendy and high-tech, but also fit nicely into the food world’s current obsession with all things organic and D.I.Y. So naturally, when I walked into my cousin’s Manhattan apartment recently and spied a Sodastream, I congratulated her on being such an up-on-it, trendy foodie.

So imagine my surprise when my other cousin, who was in town visiting from Ireland, walks into the kitchen a few minutes later and remarks, “Oh, a Sodastream – how retro!”

Whaaaa?

Irish cuz goes on to insist that every single Irish home had a Sodastream in the 1970s, “back when they were cool,” but that now the contraptions are mostly just gathering dust in people’s attics and basements. Clearly, we didn’t believe her, because these things just got popular here, and there is no way we could be decades behind Ireland in terms of food trends, is there? A few days later, she sends this:

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