French Onion Soup (A New to Me Slow Cooker Recipe)

It's spring, and that means IT'S VIDALIA ONION TIME - YAY!

And what do we do with those sweet, delicious, extra-special Vidalia onions from Georgia?

ONION SOUP!

French onion soup is one of my favorites (yes, I have so many), but in the past I've only eaten it in restaurants.  Caramelizing the onions takes some time and attention, and I know me in the kitchen - I'll try to multi-task and suddenly - burnt onions!  Not a nice thing to have stinking up the house.  So I have ignored the siren call of onion soup thus far.

Until last week, that is.

I was surfing the food porn sites and something caught my eye - SLOW COOKER French onion soup.  What the what???  Could such a thing really work?  I had to save that one for future reference.

Well I'm here to tell you oh-my-goodness it does!

On a foraging trip to the grocery I saw 5-pound bags of Vidalia onions,  I snagged one.  SCORE!  The very next day I got started.

I pulled out a knife, the cutting board, and the food processor.  Five pounds is a lot of onions to cry over, so I needed all the help I could get.  I peeled all those lovely globes of oniony goodness and cut them to fit the processor's feed tube, and away we went!  They filled the processor's 14-cup bowl twice.

Here they are, before cooking.
See how full the crock is?

All those onions nearly almost reached the limit of my 6 1/2-quart slow cooker.  After cooking several hours, they took up about half the space and I had beautiful, golden, caramelized onions.  With the rest of the ingredients added, it looked like, yes, like French onion soup!  Amazing. 

Here they are, after cooking.

*The original recipe directs you to ladle soup into ramekins, take a baguette of French bread, slice it up, and toast the slices in the oven or under the broiler, put two slices on top of the hot soup in each ramekin, cover with shredded Gruyere cheese, and then bake it in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, then put it under the broiler for another 2 to 3 minutes.  Well, I didn't have a baguette, but I DID have some leftover hamburger buns.  I threw them into the toaster, put them, insides up, on top of the soup, covered them with cheese, and proceeded as directed.

It turned out REALLY well!  But I found out I didn't need to do the baking part first - going straight to the broiler worked better, in my opinion.  But maybe with a crusty baguette, it might be better to bake in the oven.  But I doubt it would make much difference.  I guess it depends on how much you want the bread to soak up the soup.

Oh!  The onions don't HAVE to be Vidalias - any generic big sweet yellow onions will do.  It's just that Vidalia onions are so freakin' AWESOME!

So here it is...


Slow Cooker French Onion Soup (10-12 servings)

5 lbs sweet yellow onions, peeled, quartered, and sliced
4 T butter, melted
1 T brown sugar
2 sprigs thyme (or 1/2 t dried thyme)
1 bay leaf
6 c beef broth
1/4 c flour
2 T balsamic vinegar (yes, it must be balsamic)
1 t black pepper
3 T brandy or red wine (optional)

Place the onions in the slow cooker.  Pour the butter all over the onions, as evenly as possible.  Sprinkle the brown sugar over all.  Place the thyme and bay leaf on top.  Cook on high 6-8 hours, until they are golden brown and soft.

Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs.  (I could only find one sprig; the other must have disintegrated into the soup!)  Whisk the flour into a cup of the broth, and add it and the remaining ingredients, except the brandy, to the slow cooker.  Cook on high 30 minutes, then add the brandy, if desired.

*Arrange an oven rack in the upper third of the oven and heat to 350 degrees.  Ladle soup into oven-safe ramekins and place on a rimmed baking sheet.  Top with toasted slices of a French bread baguette and shredded Gruyere (or Swiss) cheese, about 1/3 c per ramekin.  Bake 20-30 minutes, until cheese is completely melted, then broil 2-3 minutes until cheese is bubbling and slightly browned.  Remove from oven, let cool a few minutes, and serve.

Toys in the Kitchen Part 5, and Blender Quiche

My friend Karen, whose blog I follow, posted a recipe for quiche a few weeks ago (see it here) and I was inspired!  Oh, her recipe sounded so good, but it makes too much for my measly 9-inch, 1-inch-deep aluminum pie pan, as compared to her monster 11-inch, nearly 2-inch-deep ceramic one.  I guess I could scale it down to my size pan.

But then I thought - duh!  I have two perfectly good quiche recipes in my card file.  I haven't made a quiche in years.  I have two Real Men living here in the house, and as those of us of a Certain Age "know," Real Men Don't Eat Quiche!  LOL!  But they like eggs and cheese and onions and BACON (bacon makes everything better), so...

I got out my trusty old Black & Decker Crush Master blender and went to town.  Because this quiche is mixed in the blender, lots of air gets incorporated into the mix, which makes the quiche light and puffy instead of heavy and dense.  That Boy even ate his entire serving without picking out the vegetables!

I got in a hurry and forgot to
flute or crimp the pie crust!
It still tasted good!

Blender Quiche

4 eggs

1 c milk

1 T flour

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1/4 t nutmeg

1/2 bunch of green onions, cut in 1"-2" pieces, including tops

1 1/2 c (6 oz) shredded swiss cheese

4 slices cooked bacon, cut into 1" pieces

1 unbaked pie crust

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and set the rack in the middle position.  Put the first six ingredients in the blender and mix well.  Stop and add the onions, cheese, and bacon.  Pulse until the pieces are about 1/2" in size (6-10 times).  Pour into pie crust.  Bake 35-40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let sit 10 minutes before serving.

TIPS:  You can just spray the pie pan or dish if you don't want the calories from the crust, add mushrooms, use a medium onion cut into eighths for the green onions, substitute light or whipping cream for the milk, or substitute cheddar cheese for swiss. 

For Quiche Lorraine, use 12 slices of bacon (1/2 pound before cooking), 1 c swiss (Gruyere) cheese, 1/3 c onion, light or whipping cream for the milk, no nutmeg, 1/4 t sugar, and 1/8 t cayenne red pepper.  Keep the eggs, flour, and salt.

Easy Peasy Cheesy Souffle (A New-to-Me Recipe)

I happened across Rachel Ray's TV show a few weeks ago, and she and Jacques Pepin were making a cheese souffle.  It was supposed to be easy, and watching the show, it sure LOOKED easy, so I went to the website and printed it off.  The ingredients were easy to find, except for the cheese.  The recipe specified Gruyere, and for some reason, the crummy Kroger closest to our house only carries one Gruyere (Boar's Head), and they hide it near the deli case.  But I dug through the piles of cheese packages and finally uncovered one.

I tried making the recipe, and it was indeed EASY.  I made a couple of very minor adjustments, like making the roux in the microwave instead of on the stovetop, and here's the result!  It's supposed to serve 4, but they'll be BIG servings!

Isn't that purty?

Easy Cheese Souffle

6 T butter
1/3 c flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t white pepper
2 c milk
6 eggs
8 oz Gruyere cheese, shredded
3 T minced chives or finely chopped green onion
grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Butter or spray a 2-quart casserole dish.

In a 1-quart microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter (about 1 minute on high power).  Stir the flour, salt, and pepper into the butter until smooth.  Microwave on high 15 seconds, then stir.  Add the milk all at once and stir it in well.  Microwave on high 2 minutes, then whisk.  Keep microwaving at high, one minute at a time, whisking after each minute, until thick and smooth.  Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.

In a bowl, beat the eggs with a fork.  Add the Gruyere, minced chives/green onions, and sauce to the eggs and mix well.  Pour into the casserole dish and sprinkle the top with grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese.  Bake 35-40 minutes on the middle rack.  The souffle will be puffy well browned.