Hooray for the first flakes of winter!
Today is a total soup day. If we weren't heading up north tonight to visit the in-laws, I'd be in the kitchen over a stockpot right now. Although French onion is my favorite, I haven't had much luck lately getting it exactly right. I don't follow a recipe, so it turns out a little different every time, mostly with great success, but my cooking karma must be out of whack or something. I do have the most perfect and sublime recipe for chicken wild rice soup, though. It is probably the best feeling knowing that I can cook it better than any restaurant I know, and that doesn't happen often. On the stove/in the fridge right now I have some partially completed truffles filled with boozy goodness. My recipe is from Alton Brown with some modifications. I don't use brandy, as he suggests; instead, I've made them with Grand Marnier. Today is the first time I'm trying Bailey's--partially because my mother in law loves it and partially because Grand Marnier doesn't come in pints anymore and I didn't feel like shelling out $28 for a larger bottle. My other modification to the recipe is that I add extra booze; who doesn't love that? I'm hoping that my improvisation is successful and that I can break my string of poor luck in the kitchen!
In other crafty-related news, I've decided to make as many Christmas presents this year as possible. Besides knitting a few items, which for me is a time-consuming endeavor, I plan to whip up some goodies. If these truffles turn out alright, there may be more batches to come. My coworker also gave me a recipe for Irish cream a few years ago. It tastes almost exactly like what you would buy in the store, and isn't too expensive. To bottle it, she suggested buying Grolsch (in the flip-top bottles), washing out the bottles, and then tying them up with red bows. It is pretty slick and requires you to drink some beer (and sample the Irish cream) while you work, so that's my kind of gift-giving. For phase three of Christmas gifting, I'm looking at this candle-making kit. Seems like a fool-proof set, and I saw an episode of some show on HGTV recently where they showed how easy it is to make candles with soy wax. Gotta love the whole environmentally-friendly aspect, too.
I'll have to post later about whether my plans were fruitful!
A final shout-out goes to my alma mater, T-G for making it into the state championship football game AND to my place of employment's team for also making it to the big game this Saturday. I'm stuck with a difficult decision: "Go Eagles," or "Go Zephyrs"? My students keep giving me a hard time, and as much as I'd like to have a strong feeling one way or another, I have to say that I won't care much which team wins, as long as it's a good game. But I would hate to have 90 cranky teenagers in my classroom on Monday...
Oh, well!
Happy Thanksgiving, all!
2 comments:
Hi. I make a fabulous and super easy french onion soup:
1 box beef broth
several onions (I use one bag of yellow onions)
1-2 beef boullion cubes
water
shredded cheese (swiss is best, but can use motzerella)
croutons
Night before: Slice the onions real thin and lightly sautee with a few dabs of butter, and sprinkle a little flour and sautee a few more minutes. refridgerate.
Next morning: I add the onions, the box of beef broth and boullion cubes. fill up with water. Let it cook all day.
When you get home after work: dish up a bowl, add croutons (I also use the bagged dried stuffing cubes-it works really good) top with cheese and melt in microwave.
It is really quick and easy. I even skip the flour and notice good results. Jon requests it every other week- it is his favorite work night dinner.
Thanks for the ideas, Kelly! Here's my approximate method:
4-5 large, sweet onions (vidalia, preferably)
2 boxes of good stock (I like Kitchen Basics)
Worchestershire
Dried Thyme
1 Tbsp ketchup (or maybe a little less)
A tiny dash of hot sauce
Sweat onions for 1/2 hour in 2Tbsp butter w/o stirring, then caramelize. Add a pinch of salt to draw out the moisture.
Add ketchup and hot sauce and stir (you can't really taste them, but they bring out the other flavors)
Then add stock, thyme (maybe 2-3 tsp?) Worchestershire (to taste) and simmer for a while
I usually use toasted french bread for my crouton and that 4-cheese shreaded blend on top. Asiago is SO yummy, but a bit more expensive than I'd go for everyday use.
I also like to brown the cheese under the broiler. Yum.
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