Grilled Cheese and Onion Rings

This makes a great easy lunch on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The grilled cheese sandwiches were nothing super special. Wheat sandwich bread, butter, and velveeta (I love it in my garlic cheese grits but always have lots left over and it's great for grilled cheese because it melts so well.)

The onion rings I nabbed a recipe from Cooking for Engineers. I wanted onion rings but definitely not the huge frying mess that usually accompanies them. Since Cooking for Engineer's had a test recipe for Oven Fried I figured I'd give them a shot. I'm glad I did. They were really good.

Oven Fried Onion Rings

Recipe via Cooking for Engineers

Ingredients:

30 Saltines
4 cups (or 4 lg handfuls as the website says) kettle-cooked potato chips
2 medium onions (I used 1 large white and had left overs - I think that I should have cut them a bit wider though.)
1/2 c flour (I ended up using 3/4 cup flour total)
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t salt
1/4 pepper
1/2 c buttermilk
1 large egg

The test recipe used a food processor to pulse the chips and saltines. I threw them in a large ziplock and attacked with my rolling pin. Worked great and I got rid of some frustration too.

In a smallish bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg, cayenne, pepper, salt, and 1/4 c flour. Place the remaining flour in a seperate bowl. Line up 4 different bowls. 1 with chips/saltines, 1 with onions, 1 with flour, 1 with buttermilk batter mixture.

Preheat oven to 450.

Dip the onions in the flour then batter then chips/saltines then set on plate.

"I poured 3 tablespoons vegetable oil onto a half sheet pan and slipped it into the hot oven and waited for eight minutes - just enough time for the oil to produce wisps of smoke. I pulled the pan out, tilted to coat the pan evenly with oil, and then placed the onion rings onto the pan making sure none of the rings were touching. I put the pan back into the oven and allowed it to bake for 8 minutes when I pulled the pan out and flipped all the rings over. Another 8 minutes in the oven and the onion rings were done. " (quoted directly from Cooking for Engineers)

I will probably half the chip/saltine mixture next time because it makes a LOT of mix. I found that one baking sheet full was more then enough onion rings for RLD and myself and that was about half of a large white onion

Side note: I tried to leave a comment on their website about how much I liked the recipe but after trying to register and get through their spam bot 4 times I gave up. :( Their website is awesome though, especially for beginning cooks!