French Onion Soup

Today I made French Onion Soup for dinner.

I got this recipe from Food Network. It is by Tyler Florence, my favorite TV chef. ;)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

4 onions, sliced

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 bay leaves

2 fresh thyme sprigs

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup red wine, about 1/2 bottle

3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 quarts beef broth

1 baguette, sliced

1/2 pound grated Gruyere cheese

Melt the stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Dust the onions with the flour and give them a stir. Turn the heat down to medium low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook  for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Now add the beef broth, bring the soup back to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

When you are ready to eat, preheat the broiler. Arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle the slices with the Gruyere and broil until bubbly and golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes.

Ladle the soup in bowls and float several of the Gruyere croutons on top.

Alternative method: Ladle the soup into bowls, top each with 2 slices of bread and top with cheese. Put the bowls into the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

Here I'm floating French bread slices on the top. My girl Big V took the pictures of me in action. (She also took a video of me with the iPad while I was dancing to Michael Jackson and grating the cheese.)

After it took me 10 minutes to grate up a bunch of the cheese, I remembered the cheese shop lady telling me to use a peeler to get thin slices of cheese for the top. So I peeled some to put over the edges.

I put it under the broiler to get the cheese all melted and bubbly.

My sweet husband made the sandwiches.

Good dinner for a Wednesday. My dad is not here for dinner on Wednesday and usually my husband is at work so the girls and don't usually eat that great. But I've been wanting to make this soup for a long time. It was really good but needed a little more beefy flavor. I just don't like using too much bullion because of the MSG in it. Little V used  to have a very bad reaction to it so I still avoid it as much as possible.

Maybe you can try making this soup, it was pretty easy to make

Have a great night!