Green & Gold Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Tomato Soup

Tomorrow is game day! And, it’s against one of the Green Bay Packers’ biggest rivals – the Vikings!

Here in Green Bay, we finally got our first real snow fall of the season this past weekend! It wasn't much snow, but it was enough to cover the ground and stick for more than 30 seconds. Truthfully, I’m more excited about the snow than the football game… Funny enough, you’d think living in Green Bay would make me a die-hard Packers fan, but that’s not the case. In fact, I’m a Bears fan! (Shhhh! Don’t tell these crazy people!!  ;-)) Although, when my friends ask me to go to a game with them, I try to be a good sport and show some team spirit…

Or, I just like to have any excuse to wear a tutu!!  :-D

I was recently contacted by a man named Brian from the Campbell’s Soup Company, asking if I would be interested in tasting and reviewing one of their newer soups, the Sun-Ripened Yellow Tomato Soup.

While doing this project, I even learned a few things about Campbell’s and the history of condensed soups!

When Brian and I initially talked about this project, he thought it would be kind of fun if I did a play on the classic Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup combination, but make it Packers-themed. I thought it was definitely a cute idea, and immediately called Ledgeview Gardens and asked if they had any of their yellow tomatoes available. Confirming that they did indeed have some, I headed over there immediately and picked up my tomatoes and some fresh basil.

After going to Ledgeview Gardens, I ran to the grocery store to get the rest of my ingredients, namely the cheese. Living in Wisconsin, we’re pretty lucky because we have probably more cheeses than most people even know about, and they’re readily available at most supermarkets in the larger cities. One of the Wisconsin-local grocery stores, Woodman’s, has probably the most diverse of collection of cheeses of all the stores I've been to, and they carry a lot of Wisconsin-made cheeses. I’m particularly fond of the Belgioioso brand of cheeses, as they consistently produce a great-quality cheese and they’re reasonable priced. For this particular project, I decided to use a Burrata cheese, which usually comes packed in water and is like regular mozzarella on the outside and then has shreds of mozzarella combined with cream on the inside. It’s super soft, but really delicious! I cut the Burrata in half and then scooped out the mozzarella and cream interior to spread on my sandwich, but you can easily substitute regular fresh mozzarella cheese sliced thinly.

Because yellow tomatoes are very mild and much less acidic than their red counterparts, I didn't want to use a cheese that would be too strong and that would overshadow the tomato’s flavor. And since their flavor isn't entirely strong, I also roasted some of them for my sandwiches, to help pronounce their flavor a little more. If you’d like even more flavor, you can always add some dried basil with the salt and pepper, just before roasting the tomatoes, but I really wanted the tomato to shine this time.

As for the soup… It really did have a nice flavor, but I must admit that I actually like the acidity and extra flavor of the red tomatoes. I’m one of those weird people who can (and does) eat tomatoes like an apple, with just a little bit of salt on them! So, for me, I really liked the added flavor dimension that the freshly chopped basil and the basil oil added to the soup. But, if you’re one of those people who can’t eat tomato products because of the high acidity, I would definitely recommend trying this out!

Printable Recipe

2 large, ripe, yellow beefsteak tomatoes

Salt and pepper

Canola or olive oil

1 (10.75 oz.) can Campbell’s Sun-Ripened Yellow Tomato Soup

Basil-infused butter

6 slices potato bread

8 oz. ball fresh mozzarella, sliced thin

Fresh basil leaves, optional

Basil oil, optional

Preheat the oven to 350°. Prepare the tomatoes by chopping one of them into small dices, slicing the other one to approximately a ¼-inch thickness; set aside the diced tomatoes. Place the tomato slices in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle with a little bit of canola oil, and place in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, until the tomatoes have softened and started to brown slightly around the edges. Remove the tomatoes from the oven and set aside to cool slightly.

Add the contents of the canned soup to a medium saucepan, fill the empty can ¾-full of water, and empty that into the saucepan; stir with a whisk to combine everything thoroughly. Heat the soup over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the soup is heated through. When the soup is hot, add the diced yellow tomatoes, stirring to combine, and remove from the heat.

Meanwhile, preheat a panini press (or George Foreman grill) and assemble the sandwiches; using the basil butter on the outsides of the bread, layer the sliced mozzarella cheese with the roasted tomatoes. Place the sandwiches on the panini press, buttered sides out, and grill until the bread is toasted and golden brown. Remove the sandwiches from the press and allow the cheese to cool slightly before cutting them; cut the sandwiches into small pieces if you’d like, or however you prefer.

Spoon the soup into 3 bowls, garnishing with a chiffonade of fresh basil leaves and/or the basil oil drizzled on top. Serve the soup with the sandwiches or place the “croutons” on top.

Herb-Infused Butter and Oil

Wow!! It sure has been a long time since my last blog post! I would like to sincerely apologize to all of my readers for my absence. For quite a while after I started my new job, I was working 60 hours a week, it went back to normal for a couple of weeks, and then I was right back to working 60 hours again. Not only did my blogging suffer, I no longer had the time or energy to go to the gym and I gained back 20 of the pounds that I had worked so hard to lose.  :-(  But, I left that job, as a result of several issues I had with the level of cleanliness in the kitchen (or lack thereof) and the way the owner and management treated the other employees, so am taking some time to recoup from the long work weeks and get back into doing everything I was doing before!

Funny enough, I actually had this blog post typed up and ready to go last week, was just waiting until I took some more pictures, but Microsoft Word crashed and lost the entire document. Strangely, the two documents I typed up AFTER that were saved just fine, but I didn't have a single word of what I had typed up for this. I looked in all of my temporary files and Recovery files, to no avail. Since then, I've been kind of busy, so it took me a little bit to remember everything I had said so that I could type it up again. Stinkin’ technology, it always fails when you need it most!

This blog post is really special to me. Not because of the recipe included, but because it’s the first one I've done in a long time and I've learned a lot about one of the local businesses in the Green Bay area, and I am excited to share it with all of you!

Ledgeview Gardens has been around for several years, and they have some of the best, freshest produce I've eaten. In the summer months, they have plenty of garden space outside and grow a plethora of fruits, vegetables, and herbs in addition to the farm fresh eggs and free-range chicken they sell. I can even buy my squash blossoms from them, instead of scouring the entire market only to come up empty-handed! But, the very best part about Ledgeview Gardens (for me anyways) is that they also have a fair amount of fresh produce even in the wintertime!! After the regular growing season, until around Christmas, you can buy red and yellow beefsteak tomatoes, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, pole beans, a couple varieties of lettuce, garlic, basil, parsley, English cucumbers, winter squash, three different kinds of sweet potatoes, the farm-fresh eggs, and the free-range chicken. After Christmas, they close down to clean out the greenhouse and getting everything ready for the next growing season, and then you’re able to start buying fresh produce again in the middle of May. I don’t know about anyone else, but I am always thoroughly disgusted with the “fake tomatoes” they sell in the supermarkets, so this place is a godsend for me!

As if it wasn't enough that they have this stuff available, their customer service is stellar! The first day I actually drove out to their farm, Darren was kind enough to show me around their facility and explain to me how everything works. Then, I brought my neighbors later that day, and he also gave them a tour and talked to them about everything he had talked to me about earlier. This was especially great, because my neighbors and I had just been talking about cleaning out my spare bedroom and making it into a greenhouse, so that we could have all kinds of fresh vegetables all year long. We had thought we were going to go with a soil method, but after talking to Darren and his dad, Joe, we’re looking at alternative methods – hydroponics and aquaponics. They use the hydroponic method in their greenhouse for the off-season months, and so they were extremely knowledgeable about what we could do in our homes in, but they also know about aquaponics and have been very helpful in helping us to understand what we need to do to get ready for all of it. I have since been there a few times, and they are always happy to answer any new questions I have about setting up a system in my own home and pointing me in the right direction to go about finding the supplies I’ll need.

If you are in the Green Bay area, I definitely recommend looking up Ledgeview Gardens! However, in the summer months, they are much more easily accessible, as they also sell their produce at a couple of the farmer’s markets. But, they are also happy to have you come out to their farm. The only thing I can think of that would make them better… If they started making and/or selling real bacon!  ;-)

What better way to showcase the fresh basil I bought at Ledgeview Gardens than to infuse it in some butter and oil to use later?! I love infusing herbs into oil, because they last a little bit longer and you can drizzle them on top of many kinds of dishes to complement their flavors. This would be great for another recipe I was going to be making...

¼ lb. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

½ c. olive or canola oil

Fresh basil, cilantro, parsley, etc.

For the butter: Place the softened butter in a small bowl. If using basil, stack all of the leaves together, roll them up, and cut them into a chiffonade; for other herbs, roughly chop them. Add the herb/herbs to the butter and mix to thoroughly combine; add more herbs, to taste, if you would like more of the flavor. The butter can be used right away or stored in the refrigerator to maintain freshness.

For the oil: Place the leaves of whichever herb/herbs you’re using in the jar of a blender, pour the oil over the leaves, and pulse the mixture until the leaves are chopped into small pieces. If you want more herb flavor, add more leaves to achieve the desired flavor.