Vegetarian French Onion Soup

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do enough cooking this week to justify last weekend's purchase of a whole bag of onions. So to take care of the majority of the onions, we made French Onion Soup. Or rather, South African Onion Soup, since it was made with Obikwa Shiraz from South Africa. Or was it Swiss Onion Soup, since we topped it with Swiss cheese? We also melted some brie into it. So, whatever the case, it was Delicious Onion Soup.

It was also vegetarian: we replaced the traditional beef broth with a mushroom stock (cubes from Capers). I didn't miss the beefiness at all. The rich flavour really comes from the slow caramelizing of the onions over low heat. This took a looooong time... over an hour. But you have to take your time with the browning (but not burning!) of the onions, because other than the red wine, a dash of thyme and Dijon mustard and a couple cubes of bread, that's really all there is to this soup. (Oh yeah, and cheese, glorious cheese.) We used this recipe as our guide, and pulsed the onions to pieces in the food processor. The raw onions hung like a stinging cloud in the air, and made Peanut cry. It was pretty cute.


Speaking of things that make Peanut cry: Peanut received his very own seduction video last week from Kyles McKay, of the upcoming superfilm Steel Viper Force: Fiero's Redemption. HOT STUFF. Like onion soup fresh from the broiler.