Grilled Cheese with Gruyere, Radicchio, Roasted Garlic, and Dijon on Sourdough

We were out of town a lot last week, so it's taking us a little longer to get through all this produce. A couple of our best friends got married and Joe and I were so honored that we were both asked to be in their wedding. It was such a fun weekend!

Getting back to the food, we got some radicchio in the box this week, and it was different than the small, tight spheres I am used to seeing. This kind had larger leaves and was more open, like a head of Romaine lettuce, which made me think of using it in a sandwich. I decided to make a simple but fancy sounding grilled cheese. Mark Bittman has a ton of sandwich combination ideas in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian so I modeled my sandwich off of those. Since I had to roast garlic in the oven for the sandwich anyway, I added the summer squash we got in the box to the baking sheet as well, to go on the side.

CSA Week 8:

In the box: 1 Radicchio, 1/2 pound spinach, 1 sweet onion, 1 pound tomatoes, 1 pound summer squash, 3 pounds French fingerling potatoes, 1 basket raspberries, 1 basket cherries.

Before we left town, we made a delicious pasta dish from the Wednesday Chef - Pamela Sherrid's Summer Pasta, which used all the tomatoes. Part of the recipe has you slice garlic and let it sit in a bowl of olive oil on the counter all day, which will make your whole house smell absolutely wonderful when you get home (seriously, try it!). We boiled the spinach to have on the side, since we already had water boiling for the pasta, and just drizzled it with some olive oil for flavor.

The raspberries and cherries made a perfect snack in the car on the drive up to Portland.

Now...what to do with three pounds of potatoes?!  Two pounds of them were sliced into wedges and roasted in the oven to go with burgers, which were topped with grilled sweet onion. The other pound of potatoes is still in the fridge waiting to be used.

Grilled cheese with Gruyere, radicchio, Dijon, and roasted garlic on Sourdough 
adapted from Mark Bittman - How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

Garlic cloves, unpeeled (we used about 6 cloves for two sandwiches)
1 head radicchio
Sliced sourdough bread
Sliced Gruyere
Dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  Put the garlic cloves on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. Bake, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. They are done when you can poke them with a fork and they seem mushy inside. Remove to a plate.

While the cloves are cooling, slice the radicchio. You could slice it into big hunks or thin slivers, however you want. (Personally, I think next time I will do slivers so that the whole piece of lettuce doesn't slice out of the sandwich in a single bite). Lay them on the same baking sheet you used for the garlic and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Broil until the leaves are wilted and starting to crisp on the edges. Remove from oven, set aside.

Once the garlic cloves are cool enough to handle, slice them open and squeeze out the delicious roasted garlic. Set aside.

Toast the slices of sourdough. Melt some gruyere onto one slice using the broiler. To the other slice, spread some Dijon and some of the roasted garlic. Top with a few slices of radicchio. Serve immediately.