Category Archives: Food

Food, soup, Uncategorized

Italian Onion Soup

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So, two days ago, I made a batch of caramelized onions, because Hex was getting a tooth pulled and wanted onion soup. Today I am using a third of the onions to make the soup.

I don’t know what makes Italian onion soup different from French, except this does not have gobs of cheese and toast in it. But it does have brandy.

Here is the soup stock. It’s a mix of chicken carcass soup and store bought beef base, to make it richer and tastier.

This is the base I like if I have no stock:

And here is my collection. Mmmmmm…

Anyway, there is about two quarts overall of stock in here. I will add the two and half pounds worth of onions I caramelized earlier.

That will simmer for 25 minutes. After that, it will be hit with a quarter cup of brandy and cooked a couple of minutes more.

(This is my cooking and liquor making brandy.)

And served with a spoonful of grated cheese in the bottom of the bowl. Romano in our house, what ever you want to in yours.

And that’s it. Simple, rich, and easy to throw together if you have the onions on hand. 🙂

 

Affiliate link: Amazon does carry the base! I get it locally, though.
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Food, soup

Caramelizing onions the easy way.

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Recently a friend complained that food bloggers tell people that it takes 3-5 minutes to caramelize onions. It doesn’t. if you are hoping to get dinner on the table in 20 minutes, you are not going to be able to do it if it takes 35 to get the onions done.

In other news, Hex is having a tooth removed on Friday and asked for onion soup for dinner afterwards.

So, here I am about to make a batch of caramelized onions, the easy non time consuming way.

In a slow cooker.

Sure it will take more time, but it is down time, not active time. And once they are done I can freeze them to use in the future.

So, here we go.

Lots of onions, too much butter, salt, pepper, and I like garlic. I am going to run the onions through the food processor and put them in the cooker for a day.

Five and a half hours later, and I am ready to stir.

And stirred. Another few hours, and soup and stew and pizza toppings and on steak and…

And here it is 16 hours later on low. Mid stir. Smells perfect.

Stirred.

This is what I woke up to. Three stirs, 16 hours. No real labor. 🙂

This made three batches. Italian onion soup for supper tomorrow, and I will use the other two batches in the future.

 

dressings, Food

Home made dressing: blue cheese

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When you live out here in Buffalo, you learn to love blue cheese dressing: on carrot and celery sticks, on wings, on cold pizza. And what is sent with your pizza and wings is normally decent quality stuff. The stuff in the bottle in the store, not so much. Instead of buying the decent quality dressing some supermarkets keep in their fridge section, and hope you use it before it goes bad, it’s simpler to purchase a pack of crumbles which stays good for months, and make it when you need it.

Which for us is now, for lunch. Last night’s wings got hotter, like they do, and our son is going to learn to make the dressing. So I may as well post it.

Except for the cheese, I bet you have everything in your pantry right now. Put 1 cup mayo in a 2 cup measuring cup (or any mixing bowl, this just saves me washing).

Add 3 tablespoons of buttermilk (regular milk is fine, it’s there to keep it pouring well), 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of minced onion, 2tsp sugar, 1/4 teaspoon each salt, dry mustard and Worcestershire and 4 ounces blue cheese crumbles. I am adding 5 because that’s what Aldi’s sells. Well, minus the bits I ate. With a pear.

Obviously, the benefit of taking five minutes to make your own dressing is that you get to alter the recipe to your taste. Soon, you’ll have a ‘house blue cheese’ that is perfect for you.

That’s it. And that is one of the most complicated ones I make.

I’ll be making wings and fingers soon to finish it up. If the teenager doesn’t eat it all before then.