Slow Cooker French Onion Soup

Ingredients
* 1/4 cup unsalted butter
* 6 sprigs thyme
* 1 bay leaf
* 5 lbs of yellow onions (about 16 cups), sliced
* 1 tbsp sugar
* 6 cups unsalted beef stock
* 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
* 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
* 1 tsp black pepper
* sliced french bread
* shredded Swiss cheese

Directions
1. Place the butter, thyme and bay leaf in the bottom or your slow cooker.  Add the onions, then sprinkle the sugar over the top of the onions.  Cover and cook on high for 8 hours.
2. After 8 hours, remove and discard the thyme and bay leaf.  Add the stock, vinegar, salt and pepper.  Cover and cook on high an additional 30 minutes.
3. Preheat the broiler to high.  Arrange bread slices to toast under the broiler, about 30 seconds on each side.
4. Ladle 1 cup of soup into a crock or mug or oven-proof bowl.  Top with toasted bread (one or two slices) and about 2 tbsp shredded Swiss cheese.  Place under the broiler for 2 minutes or until you like the look of the melted cheese.  Serve and enjoy!
5. If you want to freeze the soup, place it in the individual crocks/bowls/ramekins and freeze without the bread or cheese. 


Notes
Oh wow - yummy and easy!!!  Do be prepared for your home to smell like onions for a day or two, but what can you expect when you've just slow cooked 5 lbs of onions for over 8 hours! I made it for myself with the plan to individually freeze the remaining portions.  It made about 10 freezer portions for me, which will be fabulous to pull out one day, thaw in the fridge and reheat.  Then I'll just top it with the bread and cheese, broil it, and delight in my ridiculously easy fabulous meal!  I did find that it needed a bit more salt and pepper, so when you make this, put the salt and pepper on the table for your friends and family to add to their soup as they desire.  The recipe here is adapted from the April 2015 Cooking Light Magazine.  

Tomato-Garlic Cream Sauce

Ingredients
* 1 tsp butter
* 1 garlic clove, sliced
* 1 tsp white wine vinegar
* 2 tsp tomato paste
* 1/2 cup heavy cream
* 1/8 tsp kosher salt

Directions
1. Melt the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat.
2. Add the sliced garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.
3. Stir in the vinegar, tomato paste, heavy cream and salt.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes, or until reduced by 1/3.
4. Strain the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve, then transfer to a squeeze bottle.
5. Decorate your plate with the sauce, and serve with roast chicken, and garnish your plate with chopped chives.

Notes
Yum!!!  This sauce was delicious and went great with roast chicken.  The sauce made it seem like restaurant quality meal, but since you didn't need too much sauce there wasn't the guilt factor of eating a heavy cream sauce.  I will definitely make this again!  The recipe here is adapted from a recipe in the May 2014 Food Network Magazine.  

Banana Snack Cake

Ingredients
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 1/4 cup sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup sour cream
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 2 cups AP flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* three ripe bananas (1 cup), mashed
* frosting, if desired

Directions
1. Grease two 7 x 11 baking pans (I use glass).  Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter ans sugar until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs, sour cream and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt.  Gradually add this flour mixture to the batter,  Stir in the bananas.
4. Spread the batter into the two greased baking pans.  Bake for 25-28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Cool and frost if desired, or just enjoy!

Notes
This freezes well.  You can either freeze individual slices or freeze the entire snack cake.  This was delicious, super moist, and was satisfying without any frosting!  It worked great as a banana cake when I layered tow pieces together with frosting in the middle and on top.

January 23, 2015

What a disappointment...we tried two new recipes this week but neither were very good, and certainly were not blog-worthy.  We tried a new chicken casserole (too much thyme and it really drowned out the other flavors), and a new banana muffin recipe (much too dry).  We'll have to see what gets on the menu next week and if I have a chance to try anything new.

I've loved doing this blog for the past few years, but now I am especially thankful for it!  I have an electronic repository of meals that I know most, if not all, of my family will enjoy.  When I meal plan now that I am student teaching I pull out the old stand-bys (tacos, spaghetti), but I have a great resource for other dishes.  It is fabulous.  It came in really handy on Saturday morning when my fridge and pantry were so depleted I was not going to be able to feed the five of us breakfast.  We had just a couple of eggs, but no milk, no bread or English muffins, no yogurt, no granola, no frozen waffles, not much of anything.  But then I remembered that I have a waffle recipe that uses club soda instead of milk!  I had seltzer on hand so I substituted that, and everyone loved them.  It was excellent to be able to grab a recipe and save myself from having to run to the store even before we were all out of our pajamas.

Wish me luck that I find the time to try out something new, and really cross your fingers that we can vote it to keeper status!

Happy Cooking!

January 16, 2015

A full week of student teaching in the books.  It was a whirlwind week, and although I didn't try any new recipes, we all made it out the door in the morning on time and had a good meal each night. I had a great week at school and also managed to get to O's school concert, H's volleyball game and  my bookclub.  The meal planning and super prepping (from dinner stuff to picking out clothes the night before) made evenings more enjoyable and easier on all of us.  I'm definitely going to keep it up!

I'm making a new recipe on Saturday; here's hoping it's a keeper!

Happy Cooking!

January 9, 2015

Happy belated New Year, happy early birthday to my little guy, and whew...I made it though my first week of student teaching.  To be fair, it was only 3 days since we had 2 days off for extreme cold, but all 5 of us survived!  It is a big adjustment for the whole family, but so far it is going well.  Ask me again next week after 5 consecutive days of work.

One thing that really helped back at home was doing lots of cooking and prepping on Sunday for the week ahead. Getting home-cooked meals on the table in very little time with minimal effort was amazing.  One of my sisters does this almost every Sunday, and she learned it from our mom who used to cook like this.  My Sunday plans already include lots of cooking and prepping!

This week I only made one new recipe and it was a unanimous keeper.  Although it was my first time making it, it is a family recipe from Ryan's side - farm style baking powder biscuits.  Delicious, and really so so so much better then Bisquick biscuits, even when I use my own DIY Bisquick mix.

I'm going to prep again on Sunday...what about you?   Maybe think about it!!!

Happy cooking! 

New Recipe
Farmhouse Baking Powder Biscuits

Farmhouse Baking Powder Biscuits

Ingredients
* 2 cups flour
* 4 tsp baking powder
* 2 tsp sugar
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
* 1/2 cup shortening
* 2/3 cup milk

Directions
1. Mix the ingredients and knead 8-10 times, about 2 minutes.
2. Pat the dough to 1" thick, and cut the dough with biscuit cutters.
3. Bake 10-12 minutes at 450 F, or until lightly golden brown.  Serve with butter, jam, or eat plain.  Enjoy!

Notes
I had all the ingredients on hand because the O-man requested we make Ranger Cookies for school lunches.  It was the first time I made these, though the recipe has been in the family for years and years.  Talk about delicious!!!