Tuesday, September 22, 2009

French Onion Soup

I may have said this before, but i'm not really a great cook. However, with a little help from my husband, tonight's dinner was officially awesome. Everything on this blog so far has been baking/sweets related, so this is a little different, but with the sudden cool weather I figured it was time for a good soup. I heartily recommend this french onion soup (courtesy the food network and Paula Dean).

I'm actually going to go ahead and post the link to the recipe, because I really didn't use specific amounts:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/french-onion-soup-recipe/index.html

I used:

2 really big onions sliced
Some minced garlic (about a teaspoon)
Some olive oil
about 2 tablespoons of flour
1 carton of beef broth
A little bit of Sauvignon Blanc
Some dried thyme
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper
Pre-cut french bread from HEB
Grated Italian Blend cheese

And then Justin used (as a fix-it) some brown sugar.

I know, not very precise, but with soup it doesn't need to be. I'm proof that it is REALLY hard to mess this up.

I started by taking about 20 minutes to cut up the two giant onions (one red, one white), then poured the onions in a pot with some olive oil, salt, and the garlic. I sauteed these for a while then added the flour - the sauteing is where I went wrong. You should saute the onions till they get really brown and wilted looking. They should look caramelized. The caramelization is what makes the french onion soup sweet.


(this is how they look when they're NOT done)

I then added the beef broth, wine, thyme, and pepper. That was the point when Justin came in and asked me what I was doing and explained about the caremelizing. I got really upset and almost cried. Yes, I know it's an over-reaction. Luckily, he was able to save the day. I went for a "run" (aka. walk on the treadmill and wish i were in better shape), and he took over the soup. He turned it to a boil and added some brown sugar to sweeten it up. About half an hour later it was done! Magic, i swear!




To make it especially fancy I used the cut up french bread from HEB, buttered and toasted them, then turned the oven on broil and melted the cheese real quick on top.


Truly, the perfect dinner for the first really cool day of the year!

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