French Onion Soup (requested by Don Collins)

Ever since my friend Don Collins tasted my Mom's french onion soup at our New Year's party, he has been begging us for the recipe, so today is his lucky day!  Usually I make this soup with leftover beef or lamb, so you should make this soup the night after you have a roast.  But, sometimes roasts are left unroasted, and meat must be cooked especially for the soup!  If this is your case, it's fine, it just means that you have to go to extra trouble to cook the beef or lamb instead of just using leftovers.  Now remember, you can always make the soup vegetarian by leaving out the beef!

Start with however much meat you want in your soup.  It could be a little meat, it could be a lot of meat, it depends on your preference.  I personally don't like to much meat in my soup, so I'm using 2 pieces of meat.  I chose beef for my meat, but my pieces are to big to cook, so I'm going to cut them in half cross-wise.

Preheat a pan coated in olive oil.

Once you've cut your meat into small slices, place it in the oil with tongs or your hands.

The oil spatters everywhere, so for the sake of a clean kitchen and no burns you may want to cover the pan with a splatter screen.  You can get a set of three at Bed Bath & Beyond: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/splatter-screen-set-of-3/1012910649

Once the meat is cooked on the bottom side, flip it with tongs . . .

And replace the splatter screen.

When the meat is fully cooked on both sides, remove it from the pan with tongs, chop it into bite sized pieces, and pulse it in a Cuisinart Food Processor into fine pieces and put it in another container for later.

I used 2 bags of Mayan Sweets for my onions.  You can use a different type of onion, buy I find that these are best because, as their names implies, they are much sweeter than other types of onions.

Peel all of your onions and put them in a large bowl.

Preheat about a 1/4 cup of oil in a large pot.  You need lots of oil to caramelize onions!

Cut your onions into quarters one at a time . . .

And slice them in a Cuisinart Food Processor with the thinest slicing attachment.

Once all your onions are sliced, add them to the heated oil.

Make sure to stir the onions consistently so that they don't burn.  Just don't stir them too much, you want them to caramelize!

When the onions are fully caramelized, add about 1/2 of molasses.  Blackstrap is ideal, but you can use regular instead if you have to.

Since alcohol cooks off, add 1 cup of white wine for flavor.

Obviously you wouldn't just want to eat a bowl full of onions, so add 2 containers of beef broth for liquid and flavor.

Remember the meat you cooked and chopped earlier?  It's time to add it!

Add 5-7 bays leaves, depending on their size.  Once the soup is dished up, take them out.  They're not edible, you just want their flavor in the soup!

Add about 2 tablespoons of thyme.  I didn't have any, so it's fine if you don't, just use oregano instead!

Once the soup is fully cooked, it's ready!  I like mine with a little grated cheese, croutons, and homemade sourdough bread.  Check out my post, Saturday Cooking Fun, for a quick sourdough recipe!

This soup serves a dinner of 4, plus 9 of these CorningWare Mugs.  These mugs are a great way to keep individual serving of soup in the fridge, and you can microwave them, which makes leftovers super easy!  I got mine on Amazon: CorningWare Mug

I love having this soup on a rainy weekend, it's kind of a comfort food for me.  So whether you're sick, it's raining, or you just woke up on the wrong side of bed, make some of this soup!  I promise it will cheer you up!