Food Revolution Ambassador October Monthly Challenge - Chowder & Grilled Cheese

As a Food Revolution Ambassador we are given monthly challenges by the Jamie Oliver Team but I haven't been very good at keeping up with them as there were a few that didn't really fit into what I do but  am going to try get better at keeping up with the monthly Food Revolution Ambassador monthly Challenges and for October I was able to do 2 of them and this is the result of them.

The Challenges were to make Jamie's Corn Chowder and to make something from leftovers so I made a Grilled Cheese with all the little bits of leftover stuff I had in the fridge.

First off the Corn Chowder, I used Jamie's Comfort Food Cookbook Recipe to start with, You can find it here: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/corn-chowder/.


I then added a few of my own things to it like a bit of Smoked Paprika, some Garlic Croutons I had on hand and some chives and green onion for garnish.   I probably would have added a bit of bacon if I had some on hand.



Today I tackled the leftover challenge by accident I was watching someone make grilled cheese on television and I thought I should use up the dried bread I had on hand and I knew I had lots of cheese in the fridge and a few other things so it seemed like a good way to make breakfast and use up what I had before it got wasted... so the leftover challenge and no waste challenge in one.

I sliced up a very stale loaf of Sourdough bread and used the rest of the loaf to make bread crumbs so that I didn't have to waste the rest of it.

I went to an event the other night where there were two full tables of cheese.  I couldn't finish all the cheese I had on my plate so I took the rest home.  It was an assortment of little bits of very high quality cheeses.   I also had some red onion that I had finely sliced on a mandolin that was left over in the fridge and a bit of leftover cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving.  I put it all together in a sandwich and even added a bit of fig jam to cut the cranberry tartness.   I did the typical thing of buttering the outside of the bread and fried it up.  I got a beautiful melding of a bunch of great cheeses like goat cheese, Morbier, and hard cheese.  It turned out to be a great combination that worked with the sweetness of the jam and cranberry sauce and the sweet red onion.   Voila,  kicked up gourmet leftover GRILLED CHEESE.   It's not a fancy dish but it does taste gourmet.

These two recipes together would probably make the perfect Fall/Winter lunch.   You might not be able to see the cheese oozing but it was melty in there and all you need to know is that the combination of a mix of cheeses plus leftover jam and onion mixed up makes a great grilled cheese sandwich.  

So GO FOR IT...  make some Grilled Cheese and Chowder and "Tuck In" as Jamie Oliver says.