Friday, January 22, 2010

(This is becoming a habit.)

I feel like I need to tell y'all what we're having for supper at night. But I promise I'll ONLY do it if it's interesting. This morning, I pulled a big chunk of meat (1.3 lbs. of sirloin, to be exact) from the freezer.

"Whatcha gonna do with that?" Adam asked me.
"I dunno. Stir fry?" replied the inventive wife.
He promptly volunteered to be in charge of dinner.

Fine by me :) Yippee! He decided on French Onion Soup and roast beef sandwiches. And, you guessed it, ATK has a great soup recipe.

First, Adam cooked down 3 lbs. of yellow onions in a heavy iron pot, in a 400 oven, covered. He cooked them once (until greatly reduced), stirred them, and added 1/4 cup water.
Back in the oven they go, to reduce again, same procedure. And then a 3rd time. But at the end of the 3rd cooking, he deglazed the pan with 1/2 cup white wine instead. Onions are done.

He also cooked 2 baguettes. To the onions, he added 3 cups of beef broth (made with beef bouillon). Now I must add here that we made French Onion Soup often, many years ago. But this is by FAR the best-tasting, smoothest, silkiest, mildest version I've tasted. All that cooking down produces a delectable taste. ( I used to dislike the wine in it, but this time I couldn't taste the wine.)
He cooked the beef first on a skillet to brown it, then uncovered and dry, in a 225 oven until it was 115 degree inside (about 12 minutes). After turning off the oven, it remained in there another 15 minutes.
Part of the baguette he used to make the soup, with mozzarella on top. We dipped the beef sandwiches into the broth in the soup. Mmmmmm.
This was warm comfort food on a wet, cold day.

And, because random homeschooling photos are always fun, here's Julia's rendition of the Parthenon, made with tin foil and old candy wrappers:

3 comments:

GretchenJoanna said...

All these creations are, as you say, interesting, and so worth posting pictures of! Comfort food, indeed. That Parthenon is brilliant, in both ways.

hkrobinson said...

I love Julia's Parthenon!

Carolyn said...

I bought beef ribs and onions today so I could make French Onion Soup. Please give more details!