Weekly Dish

Well, if you have a log or two of goat cheese, herbs, olive oil, and some crackers, you can throw this together and look like you planned it all along.

My cousin had a party not too long ago, and her sister-in-law served something similar to this (and that, my non-southern friends is how recipes travel down here: my sister said she had such and such at a party and got the recipe from so and so, who got it from her aunt and so on…).

It was so pretty, I resolved to assemble it (it seems unfair to call this cooking) the next time we had people over. And so I did.

Besides how easy it is to do, the other great thing about this appetizer is that it can be assembled beforehand (and I think it tastes better after the herby flavor has had time to soak in). Just pull it out of the fridge up to an hour before you expect guests so it can soften, and you’re set. It’s the perfect thing to have with wine while you’re finishing up dinner.

What you need:
A long, thin, dish with a lip at the edges
Goat cheese (I used 2 4-ounce logs)
Good olive oil
Kosher or sea salt
Cracked black pepper
An assortment of herbs (I used lemon basil, rosemary, and Cuban oregano)
Crackers (We love the rosemary-olive oil Triscuits)

Up to a day before you want to serve it: Form the goat cheese into a long, thin log shape, and puncture the top with a fork several times. Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and minced herbs. Cover and refrigerate.

An hour before serving: Uncover and lay sprigs of fresh herbs all around the cheese. Drizzle the whole plate with more olive oil, salt, pepper, and finish by sprinkling with more minced herbs.

We are not wine connoisseurs, but if you’re looking for an inexpensive and mellow red wine, Foxy compliments the herbed goat cheese quite nicely.

Barbara, over at Tigers and Strawberries, has invited food bloggers to participate in an event centered on the uses of a variety of spices. For the first three rounds, I was a passive onlooker, reading the entries and gleaning inspiration from those who contributed. But when she announced the most recent edition, The Spice Is Right IV: It’s Too Darned Hot!, using chiles in any form, I knew I’d have to get off the sidelines and get in the game. We love spicy food around here, especially in the summer. (Mostly because it gives us the excuse to pair our food with very cold, fun beverages.)

But immediately, I was stumped about what to make. You see, my favorite spicy cuisine is Thai, and my favorite way to use chiles is in my attempts to make Thai food at home. But that seemed a rather silly entry for this event because Barbara knows way, way more about Thai cuisine than I do, and if you really want to learn how to make it properly, you should go dig through her archives.

So then I thought perhaps I’d try to find some sort of exotic and unique chile and concoct a new inventive creation all my own.

But, well, the thing about the heat (and, wow, is it ever hot in south Louisiana) is that it makes me crave simplicity. It’s almost as if my palate is lazy too–my tastebuds don’t want anything that’s going to make them work too hard, much like my body doesn’t want me to cook anything that requires my being in the kitchen too long.

So I return to the most common of chiles, the dark green one that grows abundantly in the garden, the one that appears most frequently in my cooking, the ubiquitous jalapeno.

Some people like their food to be either savory or sweet, but nowhere in between, no blurring of the lines. I, on the other hand, fall in the contrast camp. When I snack, I find that I need two–a sweet and a salty–and I like to alternate them (a handful of popcorn followed by some M&M’s, and so on). Perhaps that makes me odd.

But it also makes me a huge fan of recipes like this one, where the flavor (and texture) is all about the contrasts. Spicy, sweet, sharp, tangy, salty, herby, soft, crunchy–this quesadilla has it all. Pair it with a frozen margarita (rimmed with salt, of course), and a handful of lime-flavored tortillas to serve with the extra salsa, and I am one happy girl. Even in this heat.

And, I haven’t even had to work hard–with minimal effort, all the contrasts I need are packed snugly into one, crispy tortilla. What more could my taste buds ask for?

Blue Cheese and Mango Quesadillas with Mango Salsa
–inspired by a recipe in The Cheese Lover’s Cookbook and Guide by Paula Lambert

2 ripe mangoes, pitted and peeled
2 T. red onion, finely chopped
4 T. bell or banana pepper, finely chopped (I used one purple bell and half of a yellow banana)
1 jalapeno chile, minced (and seeded if you prefer less kick)
2 T. cilantro leaves, chopped plus a few extra leaves
Juice of 1 lime
1/4 t. Kosher salt
1/8 t. cracked black pepper
4 small flour tortillas
4 ounces blue cheese
Olive oil

In a small bowl, toss together the red onion, peppers, chile, cilantro, and lime juice. Dice one of the mangoes and gently mix it in. Finish with salt and pepper and set aside.

Slice the remaining mango into wedges, and have them, the extra cilantro leaves, and the blue cheese handy.

Heat a drizzle of olive oil (just enough to coat the surface) in a heavy skillet over medium heat. When hot, add a tortilla. Cook until the bottom is crisp and brown, and flip it over. Crumble 1/4 of the blue cheese on the surface. Lay 5 slices of mango on top of the blue cheese, and place a cilantro leaf between each of the mango spikes.

Continue to cook until the cheese is melted. Remove to a plate, top with a spoonful of salsa, and repeat the process for the remaining 3 tortillas. To eat, fold the tortillas in half and dig in! Oh, and don’t forget the margaritas. Serves 2 as a light meal.

Notes: You may have to add oil between quesadillas; a dry skillet will burn your tortillas in a hurry. And, you can, of course, go ahead and fold the quesadillas over while they’re in the skillet as you normally would. But, I think they look so pretty served open faced, and if you add the salsa before you fold them, then you don’t have to worry about making sure you get everything on your fork before you take a bite. Less work even in the eating!

MY FIRST BLOGGING EVENT: IMBB #19

Thursday, September 29, 2005

What is a blogging event and what does IMBB stand for? Well, dear readers, I’ll tell you. See, out there in the big world of the wide web, there’s this whole community of people who write blogs about food and cooking. They hold events every so often where everyone writes about the same thing during the same time period. IMBB stands for Is My Blog Burning? You can read about the event’s origins here. I have only read about these events until now, and for some reason, I decided it was a good time to join in (you know, because school really isn’t keeping me busy enough).

For this IMBB, the 19th in the series, Sam of Becks & Posh instructed all of the participants to make a vegan meal and serve it to some unsuspecting guest. (See my unsuspecting guests above–my fellow PhD student Casey and her sister Christy). I was all excited about sharing my very first blogging event with my new friends. Casey’s birthday was a few weeks ago, so I did some research and figured out how to make her a vegan birthday cake. Before I tell you about the meal I prepared, though, I might as well go ahead and confess. I tried really hard to stick to this whole vegan thing, but on inspecting my recipes later, I discovered that I was foiled. Vegans avoid animal products of any kind, and, well, apparently that’s more difficult than I thought.

I had planned to make Eggplant Parmesan for Casey and Christy before I found out about IMBB. So, I thought, I’ll just omit the cheese; what’s so hard about that? And, I had made marinara sauce earlier in the week that was vegan–perfect for the eggplant–and some fresh pesto without the parmesan cheese to flavor the coating. I even found a way to get the coating to stick to the eggplant without using eggs. What I did not think about was whether my bread crumbs had dairy products in them, and, as it turns out, they did. And the pasta I served the eggplant and marinara on was made with egg whites.

BUT, just in case you are wondering why I posted this in the first place since I seem to have failed the challenge so miserably, I am happy to report that the cake I made was vegan, and Casey, Christy, and my husband, David, all gave it good reviews. So here’s the recipe for it, along with my recipe for the eggplant, even though it’s not quite vegan. Thanks for reading my very first event post!! Come again soon.

Chocolate Mocha Cake with a Kick

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. cayenne pepper

1/4 t. salt

3/4 cup strong coffee

1/2 cup margarine (100% vegetable oil)

1 T. balsamic vinegar

1 T. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients together in the bowl of a mixer. Add the coffee with the mixer running on low, then add the vinegar and vanilla. Add the margarine last, turning the mixer up to high speed and beating until smooth. Pour into a greased 9×9 cake pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

For the glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1/4 cup strong coffee

Whisk together until smooth and shiny. Pour over warm cake, spreading to coat the top and sides. Sprinkle with cinnamon to serve.

Eggplant Not Parmesan

1 small to medium eggplant

Kosher salt

1/2 cup flour

1 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon pesto (for vegan, I made it without the cheese, and substituted 1 t. Kosher salt)

1 cup bread crumbs

Canola oil

Slice the eggplant into thin slices, and lay in one layer inside a colander. Sprinkle with Kosher salt. If your slices won’t all fit in the colander (as mine didn’t), cover the first layer with paper towels and lay another layer on top. Allow to drain for about an hour.

Dry the slices and wipe off any excess salt; then dip in flour to coat on both sides. Lay on a baking sheet. Mix olive oil and pesto together in a shallow baking dish; pour the bread crumbs into another. Dip each slice in oil, then in breadcrumbs. If you have time to let the slices refrigerate for a half-hour or so, the coating will do a better job of sticking when you fry them.

Heat a half-inch of canola oil in a large skillet. Fry the slices until brown and crispy on both sides, about 6 minutes per side. Decrease the heat if they bread crumbs brown too quickly. Drain on paper towels.

Serve with angel hair pasta and marinara sauce. Make sure your pasta is egg-free if you want it to be vegan. If you don’t care about making this meal vegan, you can add some fresh mozzarella slices to the top of the eggplant, and melt under the broiler before serving (this is usually how I make it).

Tagged with: IMBB19 + Vegan

When the tomatoes are nice and fresh and summery, I like to serve the first version of the oven-roasted sauce right over pasta with no accoutrements at all. But now that the summer tomatoes are on their way out (even though summer appears to still be going strong–it hit 100 degrees here in Baton Rouge last week!!), I am trying different methods to make the sauce go further without sacrificing freshness or variety. I have an old, old Italian cookbook that my husband gave me eons ago when we were dating that recommends adding carrots to tomato-based sauces. So, I thought, I roast the tomatoes to enhance their flavor, why not give the carrots the same treatment? The result is a sweet, chunky, delightfully bright orangey sauce that retains traditional Italian flavors without being boring. As a bonus, the velvety texture that the carrots take on when roasted makes the sauce adhere nicely to the linguine. If you have the base sauce leftover, dinner can be on the table in about 30 minutes…and it’s good for you too!

Linguine Marinara with Roasted Carrots

6-8 whole carrots, peeled and cut into thick chunks

Olive oil

Kosher salt

Cracked pepper

1 - 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (see recipe below)

1/2 pound linguine

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss the carrots with enough olive oil to coat, and season liberally with salt and pepper. Roast for about 15-20 minutes, until beginning to shrivel. Meanwhile, cook the pasta, and heat the tomato sauce over low. When the carrots are done, place them in the bowl of a food processor and process until paste-like (think baby food texture). Add the carrot puree to the tomato sauce and stir to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary (it may be too sweet and need salt). Serve over linguine, and top with fresh Parmesan.

For the bread:

Hollow out a half-loaf of French bread and fill it with a mixture of chopped Roma tomatoes, garlic, basil leaves, and olive oil, all salted nicely. Wrap in foil and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. The bread will soak up the juices from the tomatoes–yum! The filling is even better if you make it a few hours early and let it sit for a bit. Slice into rounds and serve with the pasta. This is a terrific meal to serve to your vegetarian friends!

My parents might say that I cook this way because I’ve always been one who delights in not following the rules. I attribute it to my adventurous and imaginative spirit (which they would probably say is a nice way of saying I am a non-conformist, a bad word here in the South). Of course, now I’m a grown-up who gets to say, “Rules? What rules?” At least in my kitchen, anyway.

One of the things I love most about experimental cooking is to take flavors and preparation methods from different regions. Quesadillas are a perfect format for experimenting; they are so quick to make, and the crispy tortilla shell can hold just about anything well. For this variety, I chose the classic French flavor combination, pears and blue cheese, and served it with a tangy mango salsa (which didn’t quite make it into the picture).

Before I give you the recipe though, I have to announce the birth of Ren William Partridge, son of Jessie and Jerrod, our good friends from Jackson (Jessie is the one who inspired the idea for this site). Ren was born yesterday around 1:15 (I think that time is close), and he weighed 9 pounds, 12 ounces (!!). Jessie and baby are doing well; I hope to have pictures to post soon.

Here’s how to make the quesadillas (blue for boy!):

Blue Cheese-Pear Quesadillas

2 T. butter

3-4 cloves garlic

1/2 cup green onions, sliced

3 ripe pears (I used Asian ones), sliced thinly

1 T. red wine vinegar

1/4 t. cayenne pepper

1 T. brown sugar

4 large tortillas

8 ounces crumbled blue cheese

2 T. butter

In a large skillet, heat the butter over medium heat. Add the garlic, and sauté until softened. Add the green onions and pears, and cook for about 10 minutes, until the pears are very soft. Add the vinegar, cayenne, and brown sugar, and cook while stirring for another 3-4 minutes. Remove the filling from the skillet, and heat another 2 T. butter over medium-high heat. Arrange one-fourth of the filling and cheese in half of each tortilla, and fold over. Cook until brown and bubbly, about 5-7 minutes per side. Serve with mango salsa.

Mango Salsa

1 ripe mango

1/2 red onion, chopped very finely

1 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

Juice of 1 lime

1 t. Kosher salt

Mix all in a bowl. Can be made ahead and refrigerated. If you have any leftover, it is delicious with lime-flavored tortilla chips.

This is my favorite summer pasta dish. Another Brick-Oven knock-off, this pasta turns up in my kitchen many times over the course of the summer. A couple of weeks ago, the vendor at the Market who sold me these tomatoes told me that would be his last crop until the fall ones came in. In honor of the last summer tomatoes, I decided to fix them in the way I feel best captures their pure flavor. If you can still get your hands on some summer tomatoes, please make this pasta before the season leaves for good. I do wish it would take some of this dreadful humid heat with it when it goes…a breath of fall air would do me some good.

FRESH TOMATOES AND BASIL

1/2 pound angel hair pasta

1 T. butter

2 T. olive oil

6-8 cloves of fresh garlic, sliced thinly

2 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes chopped

1 cup fresh basil leaves, torn

Kosher salt

Cracked pepper

Parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta until tender and drain. Toss with the butter and set aside. In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat, until it shimmers. Add the garlic, and cook until it just begins to turn golden, but be careful not to let it burn. Add the tomatoes all at once and coat with the garlicky oil. Salt and pepper well. Lower the heat to medium-low, and cook until the tomatoes’ skins are beginning to shrivel (they should be soft but not mushy). Add half of the basil until just wilted. Pile each plate with a mound of the pasta. Pour the tomatoes on top, making sure to get plenty of the liquid. Top with extra basil leaves and grated Parmesan cheese. Serve with crusty bread (I cook mine right in the skillet after the tomatoes are done; it soaks up the leftover juices and absorbs that garlicky flavor). And, if you are one of those must-have-meat people (or if you cook for one), grilled shrimp or chicken works well in this dish. A quick, easy, and so delicious meal!

The menu for this week proves that I apparently cannot go a week without relying heavily on chicken. I can’t get away from it! In my second-semester writing class for the past 2 years, I have taught an essay called “A Savage Life,” in which Suzanne Winckler vividly describes her ritual participation in chicken-butchering at a friend’s farm. Both times I’ve taught the essay, without fail, on the way to school I’ve ended up behind one of those awful chicken trucks with the cages stacked on top of each other, feathers flying out everywhere. Coincidence? Maybe, except that another professor confessed last year that the same exact thing happens to her. What is the interstate trying to tell us, I wonder?

I don’t know, but it is certainly hard for me to go a week without using this versatile bird in my menu. My apologies for his constant presence. I did, at least, avoid him until Wednesday this week. That’s something, right?

For my first chicken-free meal, I made this portabella mushroom pie. My good friend from Jackson, Angela Simpkins, makes a pie similar to this one; I think of her each time I make it. I did not make my own pie crust this time (Aunt Prissy, don’t be mad!), but if you have time, you should. The caramelized onions with their sweet richness and tangy feta cheese complement the earthiness of the mushrooms nicely. I have, in the past, added the tomatoes without cooking them first, but then, they make the pie too juicy and the crust soggy. Roasting them first in the oven intensifies their flavor, and eliminates much of their water content. I served the pie with an arugula salad, finished with long, thin slices of parmesan, cracked black pepper, and olive oil.

PORTABELLA PIE

2 pie crusts

2 onions (1 red, 1 yellow) sliced thinly

1 T. butter

1 T. olive oil

3-4 medium tomatoes, chopped

4 portabella mushrooms, chopped

More olive oil

Kosher salt

Cracked pepper

4 ounces feta cheese

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place one of the crusts in a pie dish, poke holes in it with a fork, and cook for about 10 minutes, until beginning to brown. In a large skillet, heat the butter and olive oil. Cook the onions over medium-high for about 20 minutes, or until they begin to release their sugars and brown. At that point, salt well, and turn off the heat. Meanwhile, toss the tomatoes with olive oil on a cookie sheet (the pieces should be evenly coated), salt and pepper well. Place the mushroom pieces on a separate cookie sheet, and coat them with oil, salt, and pepper also. Roast the tomatoes and mushrooms in a 425-oven for about 12 minutes, or until they begin to shrivel (see photo below). Layer the vegetables in the pie crust, beginning with the mushrooms and ending with the onions; sprinkle the cheese and some basil between each layer. Top with the remaining pie crust, and bake until the top is just beginning to brown, about 10-15 more minutes.

Apparently, the Brick-Oven (although the Brick-Oven in Jackson has closed, I understand that there’s a similar restaurant in Greenville, SC, called Trio. If I’m ever in Greenville, I’ll eat there.) has been on my mind this week. This pasta dish is one I also learned to make from the chefs there. On the menu, the entree was called Penne with Goat Cheese and Pine Nuts, but customers always ordered it with angel hair instead, minus the pine nuts, and usually with shrimp or chicken. So my order, when it went to the kitchen, would be called Chicken Goat or Shrimp Goat, which always sounded hilarious to me. I do like to make it with angel hair; the fine noodles are easily coated with the pesto-goat cheese mixture. I think the Brick-Oven recipe also called for spinach, but I always forget that; you can add some to your skillet if you have it.

Just to give you an idea of how many people there are now in the fair city of Baton Rouge, when I went to Calandro’s last week to get my groceries, I got the LAST package of angel hair pasta in the whole store! Traffic is horrendous too, but I try to only travel within my neighborhood. People seem to be in good spirits about it all (some people, anyway); I saw a bumper sticker last week that said: “Traffic is congested, but we’re glad you’re here.” Anyhow, if you have pesto on hand, this is a quick and easy pasta dish, and subject to many variations. Here’s the gist of it:

1 pound angel hair pasta

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 carton sliced mushrooms (about 2 cups)

1/2 cup chopped Kalamata olives

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes

Olive oil

Pesto

4 ounces goat cheese

Grilled chicken or shrimp (optional)

Cook the pasta until tender but firm, drain, and toss with some olive oil. Set aside. In a large skillet, cook the garlic and onions over medium heat until the garlic is soft. Add the mushrooms. Continue to cook until the onions begin to brown, about 15 minutes. Add the olives and sun-dried tomatoes (and shrimp or chicken, if you’re adding) and cook another minute or two. Place a nest of oiled noodles on plates and ladle vegetable mixture on top. Finish with a teaspoon-ful of pesto and a handful of crumbled goat cheese. Drizzle once more with olive oil and season with Kosher salt and cracked black pepper. Serves 4-6, depending on how much pasta you can eat in one sitting.

Oh, and just in case you’re keeping up, David killed another one of my plants this week. He took my three-year-old aloe plant out for some sun (the one that’s always been inside), and didn’t bring it back in until most of it’s plump leaves were fried. I must say, though, that I am painting quite a one-sided picture of his gardening abilities; the lovely basil I used to make my pesto would surely be dead by now without his attention, and we have some fun lettuces already poking their heads out in our backyard. He does seem to have it out for plants I’ve been caring for, so maybe I should just leave all the gardening to him! Oh, and one more thing: yesterday, he bought me some more rosemary. Just so you know.

Soup and salad is such a traditional combination–cold and hot, liquid and solid–that I like to continue the contrasts with flavors. This corn soup from Sara Foster’s Fresh Everyday is divine, especially with sweet, fresh summer corn. I followed the recipe exactly, so I won’t reproduce it here (if you don’t have that cookbook, you really should buy it anyway), but I paired it with a salad full of contrasts. I love to mix a sweet fruit with a sharp cheese on top of a salad and then top it with a sweet-and-sour dressing. In this case, the Asian pears serve as the sweet and their classic partner, blue cheese, as the sharp. If you don’t like blue cheese, feta works well too. To fulfill my husband’s starch needs, I also cooked some hash browns, which we really like better at night than in the morning.

Pear and Blue Cheese Salad

Salad greens of your choice (I used Romaine because that’s what I had)

2 pears, diced

4 ounces blue cheese

Walnuts, chopped coarsely (I also like to toast them in the oven)

Sherry vinegar (about 1 Tablespoon per salad)

Olive oil

Kosher salt

Cracked pepper

Arrange the greens on a plate, top with the pears, cheese, and nuts. Drizzle equal parts vinegar, olive oil, and honey over each salad, and season with salt and pepper. Makes 2 servings.

Easy Hash Browns

Yukon gold potatoes (they really do make the best hash)

Yellow onions

Butter and olive oil

Salt and pepper

Dice the potatoes and onions really small. Heat the butter and oil in a skillet over medium; add the potatoes and onions. Cook in a single layer for a good 5 minutes or so to allow the bits of potato and onion to begin to brown; stir and repeat. These make a terrible mess in the skillet, but they taste so good. There are no magic proportions; if you like lots of onion, chop lots of onion. If you prefer a more potato-ey flavor, chop less onion. I usually dice as many potatoes and onions as I have on hand and save the raw leftovers for hash browns on another occasion (like with my hamburgers on Friday). The key is not to get your skillet too full; otherwise the vegetables will steam instead of sauté, which will not give you the crisp brown texture you want in hash browns.

Tomorrow, I will resume the menu to the left, but for now, I thought I’d share what we cooked on the grill the day our power went out. After a week of watching the harrowing coverage of the tragedy in my two home states, it seems trivial¾to say the least¾to contemplate my own inconvenience of a few day without electricity. Nevertheless, many people found themselves resorting to the grill until their refrigerators and stoves were back in action, so I thought I’d offer this recipe for what we cooked the night we lost our power.

My heart goes out to those who have lost so much, and I can only pray that the recovery efforts will help them begin to put their lives back together. In the meantime, I hope you and your family and loved ones are out of harm’s way. May all of us who have survived count our blessings and remember to reach out to those in need.

The original recipe for this antipasto, which my Aunt Prissy shared with me, comes from Angela Rhemann, a long-time friend of our family who occasionally teaches cooking classes at The Everyday Gourmet in Jackson, Mississippi. If I followed her recipe, I would bake the antipasto in the oven and serve it with crostini, which I am certain makes a divine appetizer. However, I wanted it to serve as a main dish, so I cooked it in a skillet on the grill, and then stuffed it in some grilled portabella mushroom caps and topped it with slices of fresh mozzarella.

Antipasto-stuffed Portabella Mushrooms

1 red bell pepper

1 14-oz. can artichoke hearts, chopped finely

4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly

4 oz. mixed Mediterranean olives, chopped

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup capers

4 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese

4 large portabella mushroom caps

French bread

Over a medium flame, grill the bell pepper until it is charred on all sides. Remove from the grill and place in a shallow bowl; cover with plastic wrap to steam. While it is grilling, remove the stems from the mushroom caps, chop them finely, and mix them with the artichoke hearts, garlic, olives, capers, and olive oil in a flame-resistant skillet. Cover with aluminum foil and cook on the grill for about 20 minutes, or until the garlic is very, very soft (you should almost be able to mash the mixture to a paste). Spray the mushroom caps with cooking spray (I use the canola oil spray) and place gills-up on the grill. Cook until the mushrooms are soft. Remove the mushrooms and fill with antipasto mixture. Place each cap in a foil packet, top with mozzarella slices, and drizzle with olive oil. Cut the French bread in half length-wise, brush it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and place it face-down on the grill. Cook until the cheese is melted and the bread is toasty.