Recipe of the Week, 10/3

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Saturday was a gorgeous day – perfect to run errands and work on a home project (which I’ll post about later). But Sunday was the kind of overcast, chilly day that makes you want to sit inside and work on things you’ve put off while eating something warm.

I was talking with a friend of mine that morning and she reminded me of the absolute deliciousness of French Onion Soup. I’ve never made it at home – only ever ordering it when I’m out at restaurants – but I remembered seeing THIS recipe, aptly titled, “How to Make French Onion Soup at Home” over at the kitchn.

This recipe is an absolute keeper! It’s the perfect thing to have sitting on your range while you work at something at your kitchen table (such as the Psyc GRE study guide I’ve been neglecting). The give-or-take two hours it makes to let this dish prepare ensures that you will actually get some work done.

This was my simple cast of characters:

I ended up only using the sweet onion and 2 of the yellow onions. This worked for one person, but if you plan on feeding more I would probably stick to a 3 onions per person rule.

I also opted to use pecorino romano cheese because it’s sharp and a bit peppery, but any cheese will do – swiss, parmesean (although don’t use the pre-grated can stuff), gruyere, etc.

After I cut up the onions, with tears streaming down my face and my butter foaming in my handy wok, I threw them in and let them sit on low heat.

After an hour, this:

turned into this:

It smelled so amazing (hopefully my apartment mates agreed!), but in the preliminary stages of cutting and cooking, I did literally have tears streaming down my face. This recipe is not for the faint at tear duct.

Once it got to this stage, I just added my broth and let it sit for another 45 minutes until the broth had reduced to my liking.

And since I don’t have any of those handy crocks to put the soup in and let the cheese melt over, I opted to thinly slice the cheese and put them on the baguette slices. I let them broil for 3-4 minutes which let the cheese melt, but the baguette remain untoasted, so it was nice and soft and able to soak up the delicious soup.

A perfect, wind-down meal that allows you to be productive at the same time. Thanks for the inspiration, Nicole.