It started with some bread.

It started with a baguette that I got at Meijer for $1.74 plus tax and didn't eat before it went too stale.
I decided, while my parents and I were trying to gnaw through a few pieces, that I should try to make French Onion Soup. I should buy another baguette at Meijer for $1.74 plus tax and make French Onion Soup.

Yesterday was the day. I bought the bread last week while Dan and I were buying ingredients to make dinner. I decided that it was time. For the first time in my life, I was going to make, and eat, French Onion Soup. That's right. Until yesterday I had never eaten French Onion Soup.

Dan and I went shopping Tuesday night, after stopping to make sure we didn't buy anything that we already had at my house. I could hear my mother's voice in my head saying "Why did you buy that? We already have plenty here." So instead of buying six onions, I bought three. Instead of buying chicken broth and beef broth, I used what we had. I did need to buy cheese, wine, and butter.

I spent about two hours making the soup, but it was ridiculously simple.

You're going to need a soup pot that can fit at least two quarts of liquid. Start heating in over low heat.

Throw in a stick of butter. I used unsalted because that's what I prefer to cook and bake with. It allows me to have more direct control over the amount of salt. I use salted butter in my frosting, but that's not really relevant here.

Once the butter is melted, add your onions, salt, pepper, and thyme. I used four sweet onions. Three of them were about the size of a baseball, and the fourth was closer to a softball. The recipe I used called for two pounds or six medium sized onions. I probably could have used more, but it ended up alright. If you want to make it and you use this recipe, do what you want. It depends on the flavor you're looking for and how long you want to spend waiting for your onions to cook down. I'll talk more about that later. I sliced mine about an eighth of an inch thick, because my knife skills aren't stellar unless I'm cutting tomatoes. Thinner probably would have been better, so I'll probably be buying a mandolin before I make this soup again. The kind that slices vegetables, not the instrument.

You'll need about a teaspoon each of kosher salt and black pepper, and probably ten sprigs of thyme.

Once all of that is in the pot, stir to coat the onions with butter. This will also help the seasonings stick to the onions evenly, which just looks better for the pictures.

 This is what they looked like when I first started cooking them. You'll want to stir them "occasionally," which for me meant every five minutes or so.

 The recipe I started with said to cook the onions over low heat until they were "deep golden brown and very soft, about 30 minutes." I cooked these onions for an hour. They got very soft and translucent, but I wouldn't say they were deep golden brown. But I'm really over it, because I was getting impatient.

 Heads up, onions release a lot of liquid as they cook. Don't worry about it. It will slowly disappear into the air, making your house smell like onions for several hours. Like, I think my house still smells like onions more than twenty-four hours later.

 While the onions were cooking, my lovely handsome assistant grated some cheese for me. Apparently, Gruyere is traditional, but Kroger didn't have enough smaller chunks of it and I didn't want to spent $67 on about a hundred pounds of cheese (hyperbole). I ended up with Gruyere, Havarti, and Farmer's Cheese. A delicious combination. Also, that's about the amount of thyme I used. I think I added a few more sprigs. (I really like the word "sprigs.")

The next step is to sprinkle one tablespoon of flour over the onions and stir and cook for a couple minutes. I think this serves as a thickener, but I didn't actually see much effect.

Then add one cup of wine. Here is my major departure from the recipe. It called for dry white wine. I obviously used red. Decide for yourself. And if you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it. (Which speaks to the quality of wine you should be using, and the fact that if you have a sensitivity to alcohol, you shouldn't cook with it. It doesn't all "cook out," like everyone on TV but Alton Brown will tell you. The amount of alcohol will decrease, but it doesn't disappear. Anyway.) Cook this mixture for a few more minutes.

You will now need four cups of beef broth or stock and two cups of chicken broth or stock. You could probably swap out the chicken and make it all beef. It's up to you. I think. We had homemade chicken broth in the fridge, so I'd say we win. The soup doesn't look great at this stage. I was concerned about how much liquid there was in comparison to the amount of onions. Dan told me to relax, which is nearly impossible for me to do while I'm cooking, but he's cute so I tried. I took out about a cup of liquid, let it all simmer for about half an hour, and added it back in. It was pretty much perfect.

And now for the baguette. (Were you worried I'd gone through all of this and not used the bread that made me decide to make the soup in the first place?) Never fear. It takes me a while to make a point sometimes. 

I don't have bowls that I want to put in the oven, so I made croutons, of sorts. That cheese went on slices of bread which went under the broiler until the cheese melted and turned just a bit brown. I really wasn't paying attention to how look it took.

The finished product. It was sweet, oniony, cheesy, delicious. I'm proud of what I accomplished.

So there you have it. A food post. French Onion Soup, complete with pictures taken by my iPhone.