*note* still without internet, I'm not even counting the days anymore. If things don't change soon, I will be finding the nearest Charter office and grabbing random peeps by the scruff of the neck and forcing them to dig up holes with their bare teeth. . . Angry much? Me? Never!!!
So anyway, this story began back in early November. I was temporarily displaced, made some phone calls and was welcomed, no questions asked to my old buddy Adam's domain, cats and all.
The next day we go out to Ruby Tuesday (some place I had never been), I can't eat. I'm far too stressed and frustrated to even really want to touch food. I ask our waitress for her soup recommendation. She suggests "French Onion". I'll take it! I don't know what it is, but gimme! Adam says it's good comfort food. Great! I'm thinking, exactly what I need. Within minutes here she comes with a tiny bowl, and places it in front of me. Now here is where my journey begins.
This has to be one of the best soups I've ever had, forget me ever eating chicken noodle EVER again! Fast forward to me being internetless and hanging out and spending way too much time and depleting cash @ the local cafés just to check my emails, search for jobbies, and of course blog. Here I am at Panera, I see they also have french onion. I order some and bring home a cup to my cousin, who has also never had this amazing soup. He tries it, then orders more the next day!!
So of course, I check out food network and google ~ find about 6 recipes, and here is the bastard child that I came up with!
I couldn't find the onions that were recommended, so I used my personal favs plus what they have local here to Kroger. Also some recipes called for bacon, ewww. no. Excuse me. Proscuitio for me. The variety of recipes also called for ranges of cheese from Swiss, Fontina, Gruyere, Mozzarella or Parmesan. I rolled the dice (and cause Gruyere was the only one they would sell off the block hehe) and picked, you guessed it: Gruyere.
They also ranged in alcoholic flavors from 'burgandy' wines, ports, cognacs, sherrys or brandys. While tossing all of those in was tempting (and dangerous), my budget could only cover what was already in my cupboard: Merlot!
I also used all fresh herbs, I think next time I will stick with dried oregano since it did seem to overwhelm (or I just put in too much ~ but it was still duhlish and very sweet)
Blah blah blah. Here's the goodies and the pix:
Prosciutto
Red Onion
Texas Sweet Onion
Scallions
Shallot
Balsamic Vinegar
Merlot
Chicken Broth
Oregano
Italian Parsley
Sea Salt & Fresh Cracked Pepper
Sweet Wheat & Oat Baguette
Gruyere
Yes, I cried. I cried alot! I even had the windows open, and it didn't help. I STILL cried. I cried so much I even sliced off a bit of my thumbnail. Lucky for me, there's that part where you stick the soup in the blender so it chopped up nicely. :)
Just look at that yummy prosciutto!! I had the choice of the $8.XX per lb or the 'imported' $24.XX per lb stuff. I chose the imported just cause it looked so much saverory. When I got home, I stuck a little piece in my mouth... YUM!! It practically melted on my tongue. Too bad my roomie was sleeping. He didn't get to taste it >.> (more for me)
I chose the sweet wheat over the plain white bread baguette just cause it tastes so much better.
Alright so basically, Chop up (and cry all you want) the onions, Simmer the prosciutto first to get a bit of oils then add the onions, stir around for 10 mins.
Add the Balsamic Vinegar, Merlot and Oregano and stir every now and then until the onions start to caramelize, another 15 mins.
Add the Chicken Broth and sea salt and fresh pepper to taste, and let it simmer on low for about an hour. After it's all simmered out, if you have a hand blender ~ great! use it! For now, I made do with the awesome blender that Mannie got for xmas from his awesome mom. It's so awesome, it's able to mix hot items. Yay for soup!! (it also made a big mess that Zoey happily cleaned up, which is why I recommend one of those hand blender thingies ~ but that's probably a different mess hehe. I can't win can I?)
Once you're ready to plate up, get your broiler ready and make sure you have some oven safe bowls, add the bread and cheese (grate it finely if you use the gruyere, I made the mistake of just dropping it in a chunk form and expecting it to act like swiss ~ it didn't lol) and add the soup on top. Broil for about 5-7 minutes or until you see it doing wicked witch stuff.
Remove, let it (the bowl) cool, or if you're a dork like me, eat it with oven mitts and a wooden block :)
Don't forget to add the parsley!
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