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!

Special requests & my harp!

Tomorrow I will be making French Onion Soup as requested by Don Collins.  If you have a special request, leave it in the comments below!

Check out my harp playing on my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMbPzMUw_IgvlehMYshZ24g

Dessert with sore teeth . . .

If you're anything like me, you never skip dessert, especially when your teeth hurt!  I mean it's only common sense!  My favorite dessert, even when my teeth aren't sore, is tapioca!  Now most people think of tapioca as the gross white goo that the grocery stores sell, but it's actually very tasty, and easy to make!  All you need is sugar, eggs, fat-free milk, vanilla, and Kraft Minute Tapioca.  Again, it takes a lot longer than a minute people!

I follow the recipe on the tapioca container, but I always double the egg whites.  If you don't have powdered egg whites, you can just separate an egg and save the yolk for later.  But in my case, I have powdered egg whites, so I'll be using them.

 First of all, I'm making a double batch (believe me, tapioca disappears fast if you make it right!)  So I'm going to start by pouring my 4 cups of milk into a big pot.  It needs to be bigger than you think you need, the milk starts to bubble after a while.  If you're making a single batch, only use 2 cups of milk.

 Now I'm going to add my 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of white sugar to the 4 cups of milk, but again, I'm making a double batch, so if you're making a single, you only need 3 tablespoons of sugar.

Separating the egg is a little tricky, but they sell egg separators, so feel free to use one!  You're going to put the egg white in a very clean container . . .

And dump the egg yolk into the pot, but don't turn on the heat yet!  If you do, the eggs will curdle.  I repeated this process with both of my eggs, but if you're not doubling the recipe you only need one.

Add 6 tablespoons of tapioca if you're doubling the recipe, but if not only use 3 tablespoons.

Now whisk all of your ingredients together and turn on the heat to medium/high.

Since I'm using powdered egg whites for my extra two, I'm going to add those to my two that I already have.  Again, if you're doing a single batch, you only need two eggs whites, not four.

Once the powdered eggs are softened, pour them into the bowl of a standing mixer.  Make sure it's very clean!  If it isn't, the egg whites won't whip.

Give them a quick mix on low with the whisk attachment, just to make sure they aren't any clumps.

Turn up the mixer speed to 6.  By now, if the egg whites haven't started to get foamy, it means that you didn't clean your bowl well enough.  If this happens, you have to get new egg whites and start over.

If your egg whites have started to get foamy, start adding the 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of white sugar, but keep in mind that if you're making a single batch, you only need 3 tablespoons of sugar.

Unfortunately I didn't put my milk mixture in a big enough pot, so it boiled over!  Thank goodness my Mom was there to help!

If this happens to you, move your pot to a cold burner . . . (you don't need to cook it anymore)

And pour water on the spill sight so that the tapioca doesn't stick.  Don't worry, you can clean it off later!

Back to the tapioca!  By now the egg whites should be whipped into stiff peaks.

It's time to whip the 2 teaspoons of vanilla into the egg whites, unless you're making a single batch, in which case you only need to use 1 teaspoon.

Once the vanilla is fully mixed into the egg whites, very carefully pour into the egg whites while the whisk is moving.  The milk mixture should still be very hot, hot enough to cook the egg whites, so be very careful!  You might need help . . .

Once the egg whites and milk mixture are mixed together, cover the mixing bowl and let it sit for 10 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, there are lots of dishes to be done . . .

And a dirty stove to be cleaned.

Lets get to work!

First of all, add more water.  It'll help dissolve the tapioca.

Wipe up the water and tapioca with a paper towel . . .

And clean up the rest with another one.

There!  All clean!

And I washed the dishes!  So there's no clean up for my Mom or Dad!

By now the tapioca should be set.  Time to dig in!

I mixed some Big & Chunky Applesauce from Trader Joe's in for a little extra flavor.

Yum!  And it won't hurt my teeth!

It's so good . . .

My Mom thinks so too!

And she's extra happy because I didn't leave any dishes!

So there you go, an easy, delicious dessert that won't hurt your teeth, just don't forget to clean up the dishes!  Good luck, happy cooking, and let me know how it turns out!