Onion Soup

I'm a crappy blogger.

Katie, I'm so glad things are working out in the great state of Kansas. I keep thinking someday I'm going to hop in the truck and visit. Then I remember that if I did that, the mess I would have upon my return would be immeasurable. Who would milk the cow? I understand how important a sense of community is. Shelly and I have lots of neighbors and friends around here but we still continue to search for good friends within the LGBTQ community. Sounds snobbish of me I know but we both feel closer to those who understand us. I can't explain it.

Things in my world are much the same. My days are filled with poo scooping, teat squeezing and a never ending search for a therapist for Shelly. If she doesn't seek help soon we will be featured on that show on one of the Discovery Channels, Animal Hoarders.

We've done well this summer in MY quest to eat local and organically. We butchered about 600 broiler chickens and our holiday turkeys are looking mighty fine. We've sent one steer to the butcher as well so we currently have about 800 lbs of tasty beef in the fridge. My Swiss Jersey is also in full milk and providing me with an abundance of creamy, raw milk.

I've found a few new friends to join my recipe swapping circle. PM is the principal/administrator of Jolene's school. I've been selling her eggs for awhile, and I recently started pawning off milk and some extra veggies from the local farmers markets. She sent home some fantastic corn chowder with the kiddo one day. She had used my milk and some sweet corn that I had given her. When I returned the container I slapped some of my green chili in it. A week or so later she gave me some beef stew, and so started a wonderful trade. I'm having a great time! I enjoy cooking and even though I dearly love my family they are completely boring when it comes to food. Shelly is of the no onion, no garlic, no spicy, no flavor camp. Jolene is a bit better than Shelly but in the end she's just rather have a hunk of meat and some potatoes sans gravy. Trading slop with PM, at least it's slop like on my end, has allowed me to stretch out and enjoy cooking again. I try to keep with my "theme" of homegrown and local.

A couple of weeks ago, Shelly came home with some very large and some very small onions from Boss Lady's greenhouse. I ate many of them out of the gate. I love onions. I found the following recipe for a traditional onion soup so I thought I'd give it a try. It didn't exactly come out like I had planned. My thoughts are in blue! I might try again one day, on a full stomach.

Traditional French Onion Soup. Traditional to who?

1 tbsp butter I can't cook anything with just 1 tbsp of butter

7 or 8 Spanish Onions, thinly sliced I used onions from Martha's greenhouse, don't know if they had any Latin influence or not

Kosher Salt I had sea salt

Fresh ground black pepper I always have peppercorns!

6 to 12 slices of baguette or any country style bread I used my daily "make a sponge, throw some flour in, knead a bit, bake and eat it all in one sitting" bread.

1/3 cup sherry

Red or white wine vinegar (optional)

Red wine (optional) I only had Near Beer

1/2 to 3/4 lb Gruyere or Emmentaler cheese, grated Huh? couldn't find any local cheesemakers with that on the menu.

Use a large pot that will hold all the onions. (a pot of enameled cast iron provides the best surface) I had a problem and ate several of the onions before I ever got a pot out. Shelly used both of my enameled cast iron pots to mix bleach solution and Navlesand solution to clean out the barn, so I used a regular old pot. Place pot over medium heat and melt the butter. While melting the butter I used the remaining stick on most of the bread. I of course added a little extra to the pot for good measure. Add onions, sprinkle with 2 tsp salt, cover, and cook until onions have heated through and started to steam. I checked on it frequently as I'm impatient so I never did get really good steam, I had to check the taste too, so I had a few bites here and there. Uncover, reduce heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally (you should be able to leave the onions alone for an hour at a stretch once they've released their water). Again, an hour at a stretch is a really long time for my simple brain to handle, this too included several tastings of onion and a couple more slices of bread. Season with several grinds of pepper. I chewed on a few peppercorns myself and added some garlic because I can't imagine anything without garlic.

At any time before onions are ready, preheat oven to 200 degrees. Place bread slices in oven and let them dry completely. I only had two slices left so I skipped this step.

When onions have completely cooked down, water has cooked off, and onions have turned amber--this will take at least a few hours--ad 6 cups of water. When my onions had completely cooked down, it appeared that six cups of water would be really overdoing so I splashed some in and gave it a good guess. Raise heat to high and bring soup to simmer, then reduce heat to low. Add sherry. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. I added more garlic. If soup is too sweet, add some vinegar. If you would like a little more depth, add a splash of red wine. I didn't think the Near Beer would be a good substitute so I just left this step out. If you prefer a more delicate soup, add an extra cup of water. Preheat broiler. Portion soup into oven proof bowls, float bread What bread? on top, cover with cheese and broil until cheese is melted and nicely browned. Serve immediately. Serves 4 to 6.