Blue Plate Special - French Onion Soup

Live with a Frenchman long enough and you'll end up making French Onion Soup for him...and quaking in your boots about whether or not it lives up to his mother's (or in this case, father's) recipe.

So I found a recipe I wanted to try last week. It was pretty easy, not a lot of steps or ingredients but you have to set aside an afternoon to make it because it takes about 4 hours of prep time.

Yeah, you read that right - 4 hours. What was I thinking?

 Start with 3 tablespoons of butter in an oven-proof pot and then add in 6 yellow onions cut in 1/4 inch slices (pole to pole) along with a teaspoon of salt.

 Cover and cook in a 400 degree oven for an hour.

 Take out of oven and give everything a good stir, scraping the sides of the pot. Then put back in oven with the lid slightly ajar for another hour and a half. Your house smells amazing at this point.

The onions are soft and golden brown.

Put the pot on the stove with a medium-high heat and cook (stirring frequently) until the liquid has evaporated.

 At this point things go pretty quickly. Start de-glazing the pan with 1/4 cup of water and cook until it evaporates. Do this 2-3 times until the onions become very dark and mushy.

At this point you have a big pile of onion goo.

Add 1/2 cup of sherry or white wine and de-glaze one last time, scraping the bottom and sides of your pot.

Add in 6 cups of beef broth, 2 cups of water, a little thyme and a bay leaf and bring to just under a boil. Then reduce your heat and simmer for 30 minutes. You're almost finished at this point, I promise!

Finish it off with toasted french bread and a whole lot of cheese (I used Swiss) and put under the broiler for a few minutes until cheese melts and voila

The perfect French Onion Soup!

And the French guy that lives here - he loved it.

Ingredients

6 yellow onions

3 tablespoons butter 

1 teaspoon salt

water to de-glaze - 1/4 cup at a time

1/2 cup sherry or white wine

6 cups beef broth (I used 8 and skipped the next ingredient)

2 cups water

sprinkle of thyme

1 bay leaf (don't forget to fish it out at the end!)

salt and pepper to taste

sliced French bread - toasted

Swiss/gruyere cheese

in the mood

I have a confession to make - I am so not in the mood for Christmas this year. 

I don't usually feel this way, last year I had the house fully decorated by Thanksgiving afternoon and I hated taking it all down in January.

I've always loved decorating the house for Christmas. As a kid I would help Dad put up the Christmas tree in the living room every year.

Yes, our tree was artificial but don't judge because it was the awesomest tree in the whole world. It was made out of green and white loops of some metallic material that, although not the least bit realistic, looked amazing - especially at night. The tree was set in a motorized, rotating base and covered with round, red ornaments. I used to sneak in there at night, filled with awe, while I watched  the tree slowly go around and around in front of our bay window. I loved that tree.

And then there was Christmas Eve, opening presents with the whole family. Yeah, we opened on Christmas Eve except for the stuff Santa brought the next morning. I don't know why, it was a tradition handed down by my father's family and none of us kids had any complaint about that.

The tree is long gone and the kids have all grown up (and have kids and grandkids of their own...eek) but at least there are plenty of pictures and old home movies to keep alive the spirit of Christmas past.

Christmas present, however, is another matter.

 Meet Lance. He's my suit of armor and I love him. He was a Christmas present from the man of the place several years ago although it took almost a decade before Lance and I were living in the same place.

Lance loves Christmas and has graciously agreed to be my "tree" this year. I may not be in the mood to pull out the tree and all the decorations but I'm always in the mood to play dress up with a suit of armor. Who wouldn't want to do that? 

Although I have to admit he looks a bit more like a scary character out of Lord of the Rings than Santa.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

 

prairie style weddings

I kinda love weddings. No, that's not quite right. I'm pretty much obsessed with weddings especially ones with a rustic, vintage vibe.

In addition, I am in love with anything that Fifi O'Neill does. I love her style and her way of documenting the world. So it's with great excitement that I await the December 2nd release of her new book Prairie Style Weddings.

Until then I've got this great video that Fifi has put out along with some wonderful preview pictures on Pinterest to keep me going. I hope you enjoy it too!

MIA me

That's the view from my mother's back porch, isn't it lovely? I would love to look out at that lake every morning while sipping my cocoa.

Sorry I've gone MIA from the blog. I've been helping out my mother for a few days but I will be back soon.

Until then, enjoy the view!

my favorite apron

I just love to bake so when the man of the place cleaned out the freezer the other day and mentioned that I had a "ton" of frozen bananas in there, I took the (very broad) hint and decided to spend today baking banana bread, which I promise to tell you about another day.

BUT, I can't even begin to talk about baking without first talking about aprons. Don't you just love aprons? I can't resist an apron made from vintage-style fabrics. If you ever lose me in a kitchen store, just look for the apron display. Aprons make me feel like Julia Child, June Cleaver, Donna Reed and Lucy Ricardo all rolled into one.

So a couple of years ago I was thrilled to find a great online apron designer, Cindy from Retro Revival. Actually, I guess I didn't find her online, I found her at the Great American Pie Festival because we were both living in Central Florida at the time. Anyway, I fell in love with her aprons and was determined to have her make something for me.

I knew just what I wanted. Don't laugh but I found the perfect vintage apron at the American Girl store. Unfortunately it wasn't quite my size because it was made for a doll. So I asked Cindy to make me an apron just like Kit Kittredge had.

 I really loved the mix of fabrics. It's hard to tell in this picture but those are cherries on the bodice.

Here's the finished product, isn't it great? I look forward to wearing it whenever I'm in the kitchen.  And so, the first thing I did today, before the first egg was cracked, was to put on my apron because that's what you do when you are about to begin a day of marathon baking.

 Of course, the second thing I did was take a selfie because...ha, there's really no good reason for that but I guess I was just feeling sassy in my apron and wanted to share. Lucky you!

birthday month

We have 5 birthdays in my family this month (with a new little one set to make an appearance) so November is clearly the best month of the year, commonly referred to as BIRTHDAY MONTH. And yes, we say it in all caps like that. We all start celebrating on November 1 and don't stop until the last midnight chime has rung on November 30.

Happy Birthday Month to all the November babies out there - quite a few of my friends were blessed to be born into this most lucky of months as well so the party never stops.

To the rest of you, feel free to celebrate us too! We are so clearly worth it.