Whenever I make sandwiches for dinner, I wonder why I don’t do it more often. It’s quick, easy and doesn’t involve sweeping up grains of rice or mopping splattered tomato sauce from under the kitchen table. And with a serving of fruit and vegetables on the side, it’s nutritiously well balanced, too.

One of my family’s favorite sandwiches is the grilled cheese served from the Farm Cart at Shelburne Farms. It’s simple and tasty, consisting of melted Shelburne Farms cheddar between two slices of sesame-wheat bread from O Bread Bakery, housed right on the farm. If you visit Shelburne Farms, which my brood does regularly during the summer months, you don’t even have to set foot in the grocery store to acquire the main ingredients.

For dinner the other night, I made my kids the classic version of this sandwich on our panini press, using Shelburne Farms Farmhouse cheddar aged six to nine months. My kids prefer young cheddar — as opposed to the farm’s one- or two-year-aged cheeses — because it’s milder.

The bread and cheese stayed the same for my husband and I, but I added a healthy slathering of fig chutney and a fistful of baby arugula for a more “mature” sandwich.

Dinner — and clean up — was a breeze that night. And upon eating our cheesy sammies, we were transported to an afternoon on the farm, minus the barnyard chickens pecking at our heels for a piece of the deliciousness.

Grilled Cheese, Two Ways
serves two adults and two children

Ingredients:

8 slices of O Bread Bakery Sesame Wheat
8-ounce block of Shelburne Farms’ six- to nine-month-aged cheddar
fig chutney (we like Stonewall Kitchen’s Fig Raisin Chutney)
2 handfuls of baby arugula

Directions:

For the kids’ sandwiches:
Layer the cheese generously on one slice of bread.
Top it with the remaining slice of bread.
Cook on a panini press — or a nonstick pan on medium heat — for six to eight minutes, or until the cheese is nicely melted.
Serve with fruit and veggies on the side.

For the adults’ sandwiches:
Layer the cheese generously on one slice of bread.
Slather fig chutney on remaining slice of bread.
Arrange a handful of arugula on top of chutney.
Close the sandwich.
Cook on a panini press — or a nonstick pan on medium heat — for six to eight minutes, or until the cheese is nicely melted.
Serve with a glass of white wine on the side (wink, wink).

Enjoy!

This post was written by Kids VT contributor Alison Novak, who lives in Shelburne with her husband and two kids.