cold weather = soup time

Tuesday's project with Ben was Polish Potato Soup. We left out the meat because of Vegetarian Boy. It was met with rave reviews by the starving masses rest of the family and a chef was born. The potato soup called for an onion: red, white or yellow. This led to a discussion about onions and an addition to our shopping list--"one red onion for Ben." GranDee was going to the store and brought one home so Wednesday morning Ben asked to make another soup.

A look through the cookbook led us to french onion soup, a la Ben. Red and yellow onions and a vegetable broth so that we don't have to make a second pot for Jake.

Unusual request of the day: "Mommy! Take a picture of me with my onion."

We both ran from the kitchen, clutching our eyes, when cutting the onions.

Nothing says lovin' like a stick of butter melting in the pot.Hours later...

A delicious baguette brought home by Billiam was sliced up and toasted then topped with freshly grated parmesan on top. Perfection.

Sorry, no photo of it all put together...it was time to eat!

French onion soup, a la Ben

4 cups of sliced onions, red and yellow
1 stick of butter
60 ounces of vegetable stock or 60 ounces of water plus 7-8 veggie bouillon cubes
1 teaspoon salt
slices of baguette, toasted
freshly grated parmesan cheese

Slice up the onions. Admire their colors. Run from the kitchen, screaming that your eyes are on fire. Take Mommy with you. Her eyes are on fire, too.

Go back to kitchen and hang back a bit as Mommy finishes slicing the onions.

Melt the butter in a heavy, large soup pot.

Toss in the onions and saute over medium low heat until translucent and soft. Stir them now and then and talk about how pretty they are. Lightly browned is good, too.

Add stock/water and bouillon cubes. Peek every now and then and taste. Note that Mommy wasn't kidding when she said the onions won't taste onion-y.

Cover pot and simmer for at least 30 minutes. Ours simmered for hours and hours.

Toast slices of baguette, pop into bowl. Top with hot soup and freshly grated cheese. At this point you can stick them under the broiler for a few seconds to melt the cheese, but ours melted fine on their own. Oh, and make sure no actual onions get into your sister's bowls because they are sissy babies (said with love) and don't believe Mommy about the no onion-y taste.

Soak up the compliments and enjoy.

because healthy is my middle name

Paula Dean's sweet potato balls. Mashed sweet potato with brown sugar, orange zest and orange juice and nutmeg wrapped around a marshmallow, rolled in coconut, sugar and cinnamon and baked. I don't even like sweet potatoes, but they looked like fun.

Happy Thanksgiving.

another reason to love fall

The start of homemade bread season. It's far too hot to cook bread in the summer. With fall comes the fresh rolls and bread at our house. These, from last night, along with a big pot of stew. Mmmm.



Laura, because I know you watched it, our stew was beef, not the kind featured on Wife Swap last night. Shudder.

My favorite recipe for rolls:

The original recipe is actually twice this (but the flour is about 6 cups and use only one egg), but it won't fit in my bread machine so I make half. This recipe will make about 18-20 nice sized dinner rolls.

2 1/4 teaspoons (or 1 packet) yeast

7 ounces warm water

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tablespoon salt

1 egg

1/4 cup butter, softened

3 1/2-4cups flour, give or take

In the bread machine, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar and salt. Stir to dissolve.
Let rest a little while while you gather up the other things you need.
Add softened butter and egg to the bread machine. Add about 2 cups of the flour and start machine on the dough setting. As the flour becomes incorporated, add more, as needed, until the dough is no longer sticky. I end up resetting it because mine starts kneading it too slow before I'm satisfied with the texture. Once the dough seems good I start the dough setting over, close it up and let it go.

My machine takes 90 minutes for it to be complete.

Punch down dough. Lightly grease a baking sheet or two round cake pans, whichever you prefer. Grab wads of dough a bit bigger than a walnut in the shell. Squish into a smooth ball by turning the dough inside out onto itself. Sorry, I can't think of a better way to describe that.

Place on cooking sheet or in cake pans. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm spot for about an hour. If my kitchen is cool, I turn the oven on the lowest setting for a few minutes then turn it off and open the door until it feels like it's pleasantly warm. Then pop the sheet/pans in to rise.

After an hour, take them out and preheat your over to 400 degrees. You can lightly brush the tops with something, if you want. For the rolls above, I brushed them with a beaten egg mixed with a little water. You could also do melted butter, milk, or cold water.

Bake about 12 minutes. Take out and watch your family consume in 5 minutes what you just took hours to make. Grab one for yourself before they're gone.

I use this recipe to make bigger rolls for sandwiches/barbecue, also.