French Onion Soup

I am a soup girl.  What can I say?  If there is one thing, almost above all else, that I would choose to eat as comfort food, it would be soup.  I like pretty much everything - tomato, mushroom-barley, broccoli-cheddar, chicken tortilla, chicken noodle, split pea, just to name a very few that I have made or enjoyed recently.  I am also recently VERY enamored of my crock pot, particularly on nights when we have a billion things to do and dinner preparation would just get in the way.  So, when I watched a recent episode of Cook's Country on PBS and the chef prepared french onion soup in the slow cooker, I decided, then and there that I MUST try the recipe (which will follow at the end of the post).

Because I knew that I would not have time to do all of the prep work last Friday morning (I needed to be at the gym for a class at 8 am.....yes, NEEDED to be there), I decided to do all of my choppin' and measurin' the night before.  I purposefully left my contacts in all day (not an easy feat for me, by the way because I have really dry eyes) which was necessary as I needed to chop 6 large onions for the recipe and my contacts protect my eyes from the sulfuric compounds way better than my glasses.  I chopped onions until my eyes streamed (despite the stupid contacts), minced thyme and measured brown sugar, flour, apple butter, soy sauce and salt and pepper, placing everything in tidy little Tupperware bowls in my fridge, just waiting patiently until the next morning when I could dump everything into my crock pot.

Friday morning was hectic, as usual, but I managed to get all of the ingredients into the crock pot to bubble and simmer away all day long.  Seriously: this recipe says that the soup should simmer for a MINIMUM of 10 to 12 hours on high.  Anyway, I figured that starting everything off at 6:30 in the morning should give me more than enough time for a 6 pm dinner time.  I did as the recipe told me: I melted four tablespoons of butter in the crock pot, which took A LOT longer than it did on TV.  While that was (not) melting, I placed two pounds of beef bones in the microwave to cook on high for about 10 minutes.  Let's pause here, shall we?  On the show, the chef had these lovely, innocuous looking (presumably) leg bones with little to no meat attached and which, when microwaved, turned a lovely, burnished brown color.  I, on the other hand, was only able to find "beef neck bones" at my local grocery store, so mine were meaty, kind of grisly and rather gnarly looking.  If you have ever taken an anatomy class (I was pre-med in college), there is nothing left to the imagination about "beef neck bones".  I am not a squeamish person, but I had to direct my mind to NOT call these bones "vertebrae".  My hope for you, should you choose to accept the challenge of this recipe, is that you can find some boring old leg bone cuts.  Beef neck bones will work in a pinch, but I would say that they are not for the faint of heart.  Moving along.....

So, the butter sort of melts and I add the onions, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, a teaspoon of minced thyme, a teaspoon of black pepper and 2 teaspoons of salt.  I tossed all of that together and then added my liquid mixture: five tablespoons of flour, 3/4 cup of beef broth (substituted for dry sherry, 'cause who has THAT in their pantry?), 1/4 cup soy sauce and 3/4 cup of apple butter.  I mixed all of that together and nestled my microwaved beef neck bones into and around the onions (while thinking, "these are not vertebrae.  These are not vertebrae".  Lies.  *shudder*)  I placed the top on, turned it to high and left to begin my day.

I came home periodically during the day (partly because I am paranoid and I am always a little afraid to leave the crock pot sitting and stewing all day long) and my house smelled ah-mazing! Seriously, it was pretty pungent, but the onions gradually lost their sting and because caramelized and so very gorgeous.  Even the neck bones looked appealing, which is saying something.  I was so excited - when we got home, after a very long afternoon of running around to set up for my oldest child's regional science fair, I made Swiss cheese topped ciabatta croutons and finished off the soup (after removing the neck bones and discarding them - good riddance!) with 1 cup of chicken stock and 1 cup of beef broth, heated until just simmering.  I checked the seasoning for the soup, adjusted with a little salt and pepper and dinner was served!

The soup smelled so good and it tasted......boring.  I don't know what to say about it other than that.  The flavor was dull, the onions, which maintained their texture due to the way the recipe instructs you to chop them, were alternating versions of crunchy and slimy.  (I have battled my hatred of onions for a very long time.  I thought I had won, but this soup showed me, yet again, that I do not like eating heaping spoonfuls of nothing but onions.  One would think that I would not have attempted french onion soup, knowing this about myself, but other versions that I have had have been infinitely more palatable.)  The broth, which I expected to be super meaty and flavorful was instead lackluster and really sweet.  (That is another thing that I can't stand - sweet soups.  Soup is savory!  It should be hot!  Oh, wait....that is another rant.)  This was hot, but it really didn't do anything for me.  My two oldest choked their portions down, my husband had seconds, but the baby swept his entire bowl onto the floor, splashing me in the process.  Fail.

Ah, well....this recipe isn't for me, but maybe it is for you.  Good luck.  I am going to go back to the drawing board, especially with the enormous amount of leftovers that I have.  I can't bear to throw food away, so I went ahead and pureed the stuff (catching an errant neck bone in the process;  I am lucky I didn't wreck my immersion blender).  I plan to serve it later this week with a healthy dose of blue cheese blended in.  I hope that those steps will improve the flavor and texture issues for me.

French Onion Soup in a Slow Cooker (adapted from Cook's Country)

6 large onions, sliced pole to pole (end to end, though I would recommend slicing them or dicing them much smaller than into 8 sections)
4 tablespoons of butter, melted
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon of fresh thyme, minced (could use about 1/3 of a tsp of dried thyme instead)
2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of black pepper
2 pounds beef bones, microwaved on a paper towel covered plate on high for about 8-10 minutes, until well browned
5 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup dry sherry (I subbed out with beef broth)
3/4 cup apple butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup beef broth

Melt butter in slow cooker.  Add onions, sugar, thyme, salt and pepper and stir to combine.  Combine flour, sherry, apple butter, and soy sauce and pour mixture over onions.  Toss to coat.  Nestle beef bones under onions, around the edge of the slow cooker.  Cover and cook, on high, for 10 to 12 hours.  When onions are soft and caramelized at the end of cooking time, heat chicken stock and beef broth before adding to soup.  Remove beef bones and serve with Swiss cheese covered toasts. 

Let's Eat Some Fish!

As I have mentioned before, my youngest child has some severe food allergies.  As of right now, he is allergic to eggs (though he can eat them in baked goods such as cake and muffins), peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish.  The fish and the shellfish allergies are technically borderline as far as his doctor is concerned, and she has given approval for him to "challenge" the allergy by eating progressively larger amounts of the food in question while under her supervision in their office.  We did a "baked egg challenge" a little less than a year ago, in which he ate a single serving of white cake over the course of two or three hours (I have blocked the actual time out).  The staff monitored his vital signs throughout the process and, at the end of his time there, proclaimed him able to eat baked goods which contain three or fewer eggs.  The up side to the success of that particular challenge is also that it gives him a fair chance (75%) of outgrowing his egg allergy before the age of five.  Yay.

Tomorrow, I am taking him back to the allergist's office for his second food challenge: fish.  As per the doctor's instructions, I have sauteed a nice piece of wild-caught Alaskan cod (they require it to be a white fish) in a small amount of olive oil, with a sprinkling of gray sea salt and just a hint of fresh ground black pepper.  I have not cooked fish in our house since he was diagnosed with food allergies (specifically since the proteins in both fish and shellfish can become airborne, thus provoking an allergic reaction, even if he didn't actually ingest the food) and even that small amount of fish smelled really heavenly.  My oldest daughter, who loves all seafood, pestered me for some (uh...no, ma'am!) and even I had a little trouble keeping my paws off the flaky and delectably smelling fish. 

To be completely honest, I am a little nervous about this particular food challenge.  First of all, my son is now at the difficult age of almost two years old and he can be hard to control, even for very short periods of time.  I have a bag full of activities for him and, if all of that fails, I am sure the Netflix app on my phone will save my ass, but I am fully prepared for a very long, very exhausting morning.  We get this party started at 9 a.m., but even as good as I think the fish smells right now, I am not sure even I would want to eat cod that early in the day.  I am just hoping he is hungry enough by that point not to care what he is putting in his mouth, just as long as it is food of some kind.  I am also nervous because of the borderline status of this as an allergy.  I trust his doctor and I do not believe she would willingly jeopardize his health, but I can't help but remember the last time he had an anaphylactic reaction to a food that I fed him.  There is a very real possibility that we (primarily me, as I will be holding the fork and *probably* force feeding him a potential allergen) will provoke an allergic reaction of undetermined severity.  I know this is why we are doing the "challenge" under the doctor's supervision and that it will be a slow process (vvvvveeeeerrrrryyyy slow, actually) of consuming 4 ounces of fish, but I am still a little worried. 

Anyway, despite my fears of an allergic reaction and the certainty of matching wills with a very strong (physically, especially) and hard-headed toddler, I will be glad to put this particular challenge behind us. If we can mark just one of his allergenic foods off of our list, it will be a very good thing.  If we can get past this food, we can go on to a shellfish challenge next which is good because we all miss eating shrimp.  Wish us luck!

What's for dinner?

That is a question heard in my house at least a couple of times a day and I employ a variety of responses based on my mood.  These are...ahem...loosely paraphrased, of course:

Freaking Fantastic Mood:
Child 1: "What's for dinner tonight, Mommy?"
Me: "A delicious dish concocted by your mother, the professional chef, filled with an incredibly delectable combination of nutrition and flavor which will expand your ever-growing little palate while filling your tummy and nurturing your soul!"
Child 2: "Yeah, but what's in it?"
Child 3: *cries and throws something at me while plotting to throw all of it on the floor for the dog*

Decent Mood (most frequently occurring and generally employing full disclosure):
Child 2: "What's for dinner tonight, Mommy?"
Me: "Chicken/steak/pasta with ___________ (often a vegetable that is detestable to at least one of the three of them: spinach, kale, asparagus, mushrooms, etc.)."
Child 1: "Ugh!  I don't like that!  I don't want to eat that!"
Me: "I know, but it is good for you and it is what we are having for dinner."
Child 1: "Can we have bread with it?  If not, can we have dessert if we finish it all?"
Child 3: *laughs and throws something at me while plotting to throw all of it on the floor for the dog*

Freaking Foul Mood:
Child 1: "What's for dinner tonight, Mommy?"
Me: "Food."
Child 2: "Ha ha.  What kind of food?"
Me: "I am not sure yet, but it will be food that you can and will eat."
Child 3: *screams and throws something at me while plotting to throw all of it on the floor for the dog*

Despite my (current) decent mood, I actually don't have a specific answer to the inevitable question this afternoon.  I thought I had purchased enough early in the week to have leftovers for dinner this evening, but apparently I underestimated my family's appetite for chili and cornbread.  If I had to make a guess, dinner will probably be something like grilled cheese sandwiches or pancakes because our current pantry stock is not offering me much by way of choices.  I don't think it matters - either of those "meals" will be very welcome in our house: very few ingredients which are completely identifiable by the children and which take very little time for me to throw together.  Win-win, man.  I take 'em when I can get 'em. 

Food this week....

....is probably not going to be my best showing as far as a number of personal criteria go: particularly healthy, nutritious, or unprocessed.  We have stuff going on all week long (new martial arts lessons, other after school activities, meetings, business commitments, etc, etc, etc,) and, I tell you what (can you tell I am from Texas now?)....I just don't have it in me to spend a massive amount of time planning and/or cooking.  I mean, we are going to eat, but our dinners will consist of: bean and cheese burritos (using a more decent brand of store-bought tortillas), chili with cornbread (all of it homemade, because....well, I couldn't completely check out of this week), pulled pork sandwiches (perhaps with some kale harvested from our garden if I am not too lazy) and a leftovers night.  Hmmm....two things just occurred to me: first, this menu doesn't look too atrocious.  I mean, it is definitely kid-friendly and though it contains some processed food items, it is not that bad; and second: I don't think I bought all of the ingredients to make a sauce for the pulled pork.  Crap.  *sigh*  I do have to go to the store in the next day or two for other items, so, if I don't have anything in my pantry that I can cobble together to make a BBQ-ish sauce, I will just pick up what I need when I go out.  I am really not giving myself that hard of a time - I do understand that everyone has off weeks.  Maybe next week I will feel like putting more effort into our dinner meals, but I think I am going to take it kind of easy this week.