What's Cooking Tonight: Cooks Illustrated's Best French Onion Soup

It had been awhile since I've made French Onion soup and I saw online that Cook's Illustrated had updated their recipe. ..so I figured I'd give this new recipe a try. Its such a rich tasting soup and my favorite part about this recipe is the non-active cook time. You actually caramelize the onions in the oven. Yes it does take a long time to make, but if you're going to be around the house anyway it is an easy recipe to do. I recommend it. I made 1/2 a portion since I don't own a 7 qt. pot and it was enough to make 6 ramekin sized bowls full. We tried it last night when it was really for tonight. They say its better the day after. . . I'm looking forward to finding out.

My mother makes a great French Onion Soup and when she serves it it is paired with a Spinach Salad with a Hot Bacon Dressing and homemade croutons. (go for it if you eat meat)

The Best French Onion Soup

From: Cook’s Illustrated

Serves 6

Notes:

For the best flavor, make the soup a day or 2 in advance. Alternatively, the onions can be prepared through step 1, cooled in the pot, and refrigerated for up to 3 days before proceeding with the recipe.
Ingredients:

Soup

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 3 pieces
• 6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices (Make sure you get Yellow)
• Table salt
• 2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (They recommend Swanson Certified Organic Free Range Chicken Broth )
• 2 cups beef broth (They recommend Pacific Beef Broth)
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme , tied with kitchen twine
• 1 bay leaf
• Ground black pepper

Cheese Croutons

• 1 small baguette , cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 8 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)

Directions:

For the soup:

1. Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Generously spray the inside of a heavy-bottomed large (at least 7-quart) Dutch oven with a nonstick cooking spray. Place the butter in the pot and add the onions and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, covered, for 1 hour (the onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Remove the pot from the oven and stir the onions, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. Return the pot to the oven with the lid slightly ajar and continue to cook until the onions are very soft and golden brown, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours longer, stirring the onions and scraping bottom and sides of pot after 1 hour.
3. Carefully remove pot from oven and place over medium-high heat. Using oven mitts to handle pot, cook onions, stirring frequently and scraping bottom and sides of pot, until the liquid evaporates and the onions brown, 15 to 20 minutes, reducing the heat to medium if the onions are browning too quickly. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the pot bottom is coated with a dark crust, roughly 6 to 8 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary. (Scrape any fond that collects on spoon back into onions.)
4. Stir in 1/4 cup water, scraping the pot bottom to loosen crust, and cook until water evaporates and pot bottom has formed another dark crust, 6 to 8 minutes. Repeat process of deglazing 2 or 3 more times, until onions are very dark brown. Stir in the sherry and cook, stirring frequently, until the sherry evaporates, about 5 minutes.
5. Stir in the broths, 2 cups of water, thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon salt, scraping up any final bits of browned crust on bottom and sides of pot.
6. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove and discard herbs, then season with salt and pepper.

For the croutons:

1. While the soup simmers, arrange the baguette slices in single layer on baking sheet and bake in a 400-degree oven until the bread is dry, crisp, and golden at edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

To serve:

1. Adjust oven rack 6 inches from broiler element and heat broiler. Set individual broiler-safe crocks on baking sheet and fill each with about 1 3/4 cups soup. Top each bowl with 1 or 2 baguette slices (do not overlap slices) and sprinkle evenly with Gruyère. Broil until cheese is melted and bubbly around edges, 3 to 5 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

A great blog which I follow off and on featured this recipe and added wonderful step by step pictures. Check it out:
http://www.cookography.com/2008/the-best-french-onion-soup-ever

What's Cooking Tonight: Sesame Noodles and Grilled Fish

After work today I decided to do a little experimenting. I have been craving this Asian-inspired pasta salad for a couple of days. They used to make a version of it at Civilization (a restaurant in Gainesville I used to work for), theirs wasn't always my favorite but it definitely had some shining qualities. I wanted a quick way to get that rich sesame flavor, the light creamy sauce and lots of crunchy veggies without buying a store full of ingredients. All I had to buy for this was the salad dressing, green onions, carrots and sesame oil. I'm sure there is a much more gourmet recipe out there, but this seemed to work out pretty darn well and will now be a part of my regular rotation of recipes :)

Spicy Chilled Sesame Noodles

1/2 box Whole Wheat Linguine
1/4 c. Marzetti All-Natural Asian Ginger Dressing
1/2 c. Sour Cream (low fat)
1/2 tsp. Sesame Oil
1-2 Tbs. Sriracha *to taste
1-2 tsp. Kosher Salt*to taste
1/2 Tbs. Red Pepper Flake *to taste
1 Tbs. Toasted Sesame Seeds
1/4 c. Toasted Slivered Almonds (optional)
1/2 c. Frozen Green Peas
1/2 c. Shredded Carrots (raw)
1/4 c. Green Onions (thinly sliced)

Cook pasta in large salted pot of boiling water 10-11 minutes until al dente. Drain and set aside.
Wisk together the salad dressing, sour cream and sesame oil. Adjust to taste. Add in siracha to taste. In a medium bowl pour dressing mixture over pasta and stir. Toss in frozen peas and carrot shreds. The heat from the pasta makes the peas defrost pretty quickly. Stir in red pepper flake, salt, sesame seeds and almonds. At this point taste it to see if you need to add anything else. Chill in the fridge. Add the green onions just before you serve it. Can be made a couple hours ahead of time. However this gives the noodles more time to soak up the dressing, so if you do make it ahead of time be ready to add 2-4 more Tbs. of salad dressing and red pepper flake to taste.

*Notes: Sriracha is found sometimes at Publix, definitely at Asian supermarkets. Its really good red spicy sauce and has a rooster on the front of the bottle.

ps- if you don't like spicy, the dressing is good without the sriacha and red pepper flake. just not as good in my opinion :)

Enjoy~

Mother's Day Brunch

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mommies out there. This year unfortunately I am not with my mother today, but she is on my mind. In honor of her I would like to share our last mother's day brunch menu with everyone because it was a good one.
It was a beautiful day, we ate outside on the patio. I decorated the table with fresh daises and set the table with a combination of green fiesta ware and depression glass.

Mother's Day Brunch

Fresh Fruit Salad: with orange sections, strawberries, peaches and bananas topped with toasted nuts and coconut.

Butter Pecan Waffles with hot maple syrup

Bacon

Iced Coffee

Grapefruit Juice

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Helpful hints and reminders . . .
*Any time you are making waffles or pancakes and working to get everything to come out on time you need to keep the oven warm and place prepared waffles in as you go working in batches. Everyone, especially mom, needs a hot waffle.
*Be sure to take the butter out of the fridge ahead of time so it is not rock hard.
* Make the coffee first and cool before pouring over ice, you can also use coffee ice cubes so you don't get all watered down. I used organic milk in this batch. trust me its good.
*Use your favorite recipe for waffles ( I used one from Cooks Illustrated) and add chopped candied pecans to the batter as cooking.

Recipe of the Week: Jeanie's Killer BLTs

Ok, so I don't eat too many BLTs anymore since becoming vegetarian. But back when I did eat meat I was visiting my cousin Jeanie in St. Augustine and we were hanging out and she suggested we make BLTs for lunch. I actually had never had one until that point. I used to not be a big fan of raw veggies on sandwiches and didn't like mayo. Well she insisted and let me tell you she can make aBLT. We grubbed out that day.
Since then I became a BLT lover and have tried many a BLT out and made many at home...but somehow they don't touch hers. It's a simple sandwich, but it's the details with each ingredient that make this sandwich so good.
This is her recipe below. . . .

Jeanie's Killer BLTs

Thick Sliced Bacon
Suggested Brand = Maverick Ranch Applewood Smoked Bacon. Organic if available.
Cook bacon in the oven at 375 for 12-15 minutes, she cooks the bacon on a regular baking sheet that's been covered with foil. Always check the bacon after 8-10 minutes. Don't burn it! You may have to rotate your pan if your oven cooks unevenly.

Crisp Romaine Lettuce
Washed and torn into sandwich sized pieces.

Beef Steak Tomato or a good hardy in-season Tomato
Washed and sliced medium to thick.

Mayonnaise
Suggested Brand: Hellmans

Salt & Pepper

Bread
Suggested Brand: Publix Italian Bread from the bakery OR Spelt bread (found in freezer section) Toast or crisp bread, make sure you time everything out so that the bread is warm when you're ready to put the sandwich together.

ASSEMBLY:
Spread Mayo on both sides of bread. Place 2-3 strips of bacon on one side of bread, layer lettuce then tomato slices on the other side of bread. Salt & Pepper the tomato. Put it all together and serve immediately. yum!

Serve with cold bread & butter crinkle cut pickles, raw veggies and lite bleu cheese dressing and kettle cooked potato chips.

Variations: If you are at a swanky grocery store you could try this with heirloom tomatoes, they are delicious. Also, if you are not a mayo fan a good honey mustard can be substituted. Try the mayo first. :)

enjoy~