Author Archives: patty

The French Chef, a Blizzard, and The Best French Onion Soup

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It sure is beginning to look a lot like Christmas is coming here in Nebraska.  Our first blizzard of the winter season.  So far we have about twelve inches, with another three to four projected by morning.  Yippee??

If we can figure out how to put a man on the moon, figure out how to transmit data/voice wireless, figure out how to capture the wind and turn it into power, why oh why can we not figure out how to make the snow ONLY land on the ground not on sidewalks and driveways??  Shoveling one or two inches once a day is not a big deal.  However, shoveling three or four inches every six to eight hours for the first snow fall of the season is disheartening…especially when you realize that this is only the first week of December.  Our winter will last another three more months.  What else is in store for us this winter?

I did have a wonderful blessing in the middle of my second shoveling session.  Two of my dear, sweet cousins surprised me by coming down to my home and helping with the shoveling.  Such darling young men.  I found it very hard to grumble and feel sorry for myself when I had those two special young men helping me.  Colton and Shea are such kind souls.  Their parents have every reason to be proud of them.  The only “attitude” they showed me was an attitude of service.  Huge smiles on their faces all the time we were shoveling.  Those extra four arms and two shovels made a task into a memory to store in my heart.  I must admit, the time just flew by and I wanted it to last longer.  They are moving tomorrow, weather permitting, out of our neighborhood.  They are moving only about two miles away, but they won’t be three doors away.  It was always a source of comfort to me knowing that they were so close.  Just a quick walk for me to bring them extras of all my cooking/baking experiments.  Their new home is in a wonderful neighborhood, with lots of their classmates close, and their new home is awesome!  I truly am so happy for them.

Since the DVD of “Julia and Julie” is available today to rent what better way to celebrate “The French Chef” (Julia Child) then by eating a warming bowl of French Onion Soup while I watched the movie?  While I sliced the onions it brought back memories of my backyard neighbor from my “other life” (marriage).   Kathy was an amazing cook.  She brought grace, elegance, and joy to everything she made.  I wanted to be just like her in the kitchen.  The toffee that she gave out every year for Christmas was something I looked forward to each year.  She must have been so tired of telling me each year that this was her special recipe and just could not share it with me.  Sad for me, this will be another year that I won’t be a receiver of this special candy again this year.  I lost that treasure in the divorce.   Why is it that friends are more things that are “divided” up in any divorce?

Gracious, is it the freezing weather that is freezing up my brain?  Why the sadness in my writing?  Why am I being such a big baby?  Shift gears and get back to the French Onion Soup.  It was awesome and I really wanted to eat two bowls, but restrained myself.  The leftovers will make a great lunch for Boo and me.  She was pleased to know that the university has already canceled classes for tomorrow – now if only she would get a call that work is closed her day will be perfect.

This is a recipe that I have adapted from “Cooks Illustrated” and we just love it.  I find, as it is with most soups, time and reheating only makes it better.  Except for the tears you shed while you are slicing the onions, this is one of the easiest recipes for a hearty meal.  I do lazy it out by purchasing a great loaf of french bread from either the grocery store or a bakery.  Truly, is there anything better than the smell of onions roasting?  Okay, maybe turkey will beat onions, but this has to be a close second.  You can make your life easier by purchasing chopped onions in the freezer section of your grocery store, but I don’t mind the tears.  I hope you give this a try and will experience joy rising!

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The Best French Onion Soup

From:  adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

Serves 6

Notes:

For the best flavor, make the soup a day or 2 in advance.
Ingredients:

Soup

  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 3 pieces
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices (I use the sweet onions)
  • Table salt
  • 1T worcestershire  sauce
  • 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (I use Swanson Certified  Chicken Broth )
  • 1 cup beef broth (again, Swanson)
  • 1 cup white wine (I like Pinot Grigio)
  • 6 sprigs fresh thyme , tied with kitchen twine or just tossed in the pot (remove the stems before serving)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Ground black pepper

Cheese Croutons

  • 1 small baguette , cut into 1/2-inch slices
  • 8 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)

Directions:

For the soup:

  1. Generously spray the inside of a heavy-bottomed large (at least 7-quart) Dutch oven with a nonstick cooking spray. Place the butter and olive oil in the pot and add the onions and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook covered on medium low heat, for 1 hour (the onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Stir the onions, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. Continue to cook until the onions are very soft and golden brown, about 20 – 25 minutes.
  2. Turn heat to medium high and cook onions, stirring frequently and scraping bottom and sides of pot, until the liquid evaporates and the onions brown, 20 – 30 minutes, reducing the heat to medium if the onions are browning too quickly. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the pot bottom is coated with a dark crust, roughly 6 to 8 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary. (Scrape any fond (that’s the burned looking stuff on the bottom of the pot) that collects on spoon back into onions.)
  3. Stir in the wine, scraping the pot bottom to loosen crust, and cook until wine evaporates and pot bottom has formed another dark crust, 6 to 8 minutes. This step is called “deglazing”.  The onions will be a  very dark brown. Stir in the Worcestershire Sauce and let the mixture cook about five minutes.
  4. Stir in the broths, add thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon salt, scraping up any final bits of browned crust on bottom and sides of pot.
  5. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove and discard herbs, then season with salt and pepper.  At this point you can refrigerate the soup, after it cools, or continue.

For the croutons:

  1. While the soup simmers, arrange the baguette slices in single layer on baking sheet and bake in a 400-degree oven until the bread is dry, crisp, and golden at edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

To serve:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.   Set individual oven-safe crocks on baking sheet and place in one or two baguettes (the bread will help thicken the soup).  Fill each with about 1 3/4 cups soup. Top each bowl with evenly with Gruyère.  Bake until cheese is melted and bubbly around edges, 35 – 40 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.
  2. If you don’t have heat safe crocks to serve the soup, try topping the baguette slices, while still on baking sheet, with cheese and place bake under broiler until cheese is melted and bubbly.  Then carefully place baguettes onto soup in serving dish.

James Bond Has Nothing On Me

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The other night I watched the episode of  “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” where he challenged Michele Albano to a pumpkin pie throwdown.  Both of the pies looked and sounded awesome, so I went to the website to download the recipes.  Yikes!!  No recipes!  What gives with that??  I figured that maybe I was too fast and the Food Network Elves had not had time to post the recipes, so I checked back a couple of days later.  Nothing.  Rats, it was getting close to Thanksgiving and I wanted to make Michele’s pie.  I needed to make Michele’s pie.  I checked back again the next day, nothing.  Now I was getting obsessed……..curiosity was killing the cat.  I needed to find that recipe.  I must find that recipe.  I HAD to find that recipe.

Okay, less than a week before Thanksgiving and still no recipe posted.  Time for drastic measures.  I would find it myself.  Since I had saved the episode I went back to see what ingredients were in her pie and the process.  Ingredients, check.  Process, check.  But how much of each ingredients?  Now the real “spy” work starts……to the Batmobile, Robin.  No, wait.  Wrong hero………..I must go to see if my very own Miss Moneypenny or Q were up to the challenge.  Ta Dah……Google to the rescue.

I typed in “pumpkin pie  maple  pecan struesel recipe”.  Lots of press release about the episode and lots of other people trying to find the recipe.  No luck.  Now I really am on a mission.  I must find this recipe, not only for myself, but for all the other foodie searchers out there.

Since Google failed me, I turned to my favorite website, “RecipeZaar”.  Using the same ingredients I found a recipe “Maple Pecan Pumpkin Pie  #392195”.  The ingredients were about the same, but no struesel.  I went back to the episode and Eureka! the measurements were given.  Using the recipe from RecipeZaar, a basic pie crust recipe, the actual struesel and some guessing on my part, I set out to see if my mission was successful.  Oh, there’s the catch.  I have never tasted Michele Albano’s pie, so there will be no way to know if I had her pie.  Guess the only thing to do is to change my mission from “finding Michele Albano’s Maple Pecan Pumpkin Struesel Pie” to “finding a pie that looked like Michele Albano’s Maple Pecan Pumpkin Streusel Pie and Tasted Really Good”.

Mission Accomplished!  James Bond may have gotten the girl, but I got something better.  A new, delicious pie.  One that I am proud to be able to serve.   You will have to forgive my photo abilities, but trust me.  The pie tastes ever so much better than it looks……..Joy Rising!

MAPLE  PECAN  PUMPKIN  STRUESEL  PIE adapted from RecipeZaar  #392195

2 hours/30 min prep time     Preheat oven to 400 degrees   Makes  two 9″ pies

Pie Filling:

  • 2 single pie crust  (either homemade or pre-made)
  • 2 can pumpkin puree – not the pumpkin pie mix
  • 1/2 c sugar
  • 4 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 2 c whipping cream, not beaten
  • 1/2 c pure maple syrup (Grade B – I find this at Trader Joe’s)
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves

Struesel:

  • 1/2 c chopped pecan
  • 1/2 c brown sugar
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 T cold butter

Decorative Topping:

  • 1 c pecan halves
  • 4 T pure maple syrup

Maple Whipped Cream:

  • 1 c whipping cream
  • 1 T powdered sugar
  • 2 T pure maple syrup

Pulling it all together:

  1. In a large bowl stir together pumpkin, sugar and eggs.  Add in the rest of the filling ingredients.
  2. Pour evenly into each of the pie shells.  Cover the edge with a 2″ strip of aluminum foil (this keeps the edges of your pie from browning too quickly).
  3. Place pie onto a cookie sheet and place on the base of your oven (if you cannot do this because of your heating element place the sheet on the lowest level of your oven) and bake for 15 minutes.  This method helps the bottom of the crust to bake more evenly.
  4. After 15 minutes lower the oven to 350 degrees and bake for another 25 minutes.
  5. While the pie is baking in another bowl mix together all the struesel ingredients.  Using your hands is not only acceptable, but encouraged.
  6. Remove the pie from the oven and cover the pies with the struesel mixture.
  7. Bake another 10 minutes.
  8. Check the pie by seeing if a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  If not, bake another 10 minutes and check again.
  9. Once the pie is baked remove from the oven and decorate the pies with the pecan halves.  Drizzle the pecans with the maple syrup.
  10. Put a bowl in the freezer for about 20 minutes.  In the chilled bowl pour in the whipping cream.
  11. Beat the whipped cream at high speed, scraping the bowl often, until soft peaks form.
  12. Add in the powdered sugar and whip for another minute.
  13. Gradually add in the maple syrup, continuing beating until stiff peaks form.  This will take another minute or two.

Cut the pies into 8 pieces each, serve with the Maple Whip Cream.  Enjoy!