Sunday night dinner, French Onion Soup

I LOVE soup.  I mean I love love love it.  I could eat it everyday if I could.  It is always so warm and comforting.  Homemade soup is great because you can control exactly what you are putting in your body.  Canned soup...not to much.  The sodium levels on canned soup is unbelievable high.  Not many people would consciencely put THAT much salt in a meal while cooking....I would hope.  On tonight's agenda, French Onion Soup at the request of my sweet sister Rachel.  She tried making it a couple weeks ago and according to her it was disgusting.  She burnt the onions and it was all over from there.  My sister is a good cook and knows her way around the kitchen.  So this was just one bad meal for her, but a meal she loves.  She is obsessed with french onion soup and asked that I try to find a good recipe.  I believe I have done just that.  I searched high and low for a healthy but tasty one.  I landed on Tyler Florence's ultimate french onion soup.  Tyler is one of my favorite food network chefs and has never steered me wrong on any recipe I have ever tried of his.  And its from his ultimate show...so it can't be bad right? RIGHT!  It was delicious!  It was a little time consuming and there is a fine line between caramelized and burnt onions but it was way worth it.  The trick to getting the onions to cook quickly is to slice them very thin.  Another trick when cutting this many onions is to keep the root end of the onion connected while chopping.  It helps keep the onion together when you are concentrating on your cutting. 

Once you have all your onions cut through them in your pan with the melted butter and add the seasonings.  The trick to caramelizing onions is the keep the heat at about medium high and stir often.  The point of carmelizing onions is to add a rich flavor to them, not to sweat them or fry them.  This step will take time.  Once the onions have hit a golden brown creamy stage they are done. 

Once the onion's are at this stage you are in the home stretch.  Add beef broth and simmer for 10 mins.  Taste for seasoning and you are done.  I toasted a baguette with shredded fontina and presto....dinner is served.  I made a couple of changes to Tyler's recipe because of ingredients that I had on hand but for the most part I followed exactly.  I swapped out white wine instead of red, wheat flour instead of AP white flour, fontina cheese instead of Gruyere, and dried thyme instead of fresh.  I am not a fan of swiss cheese and had fontina cheese on hand for another recipe I plan on making this week.  Fontina is a beautiful melting cheese and tastes creamy and delicious.  If you have never tried it, I highly recommend it.  It can be found in your specialty cheese section at your grocery store.  Enjoy my friends! 

Nutrition for this recipe with my changes are below.  The calories and fat are a little on the high side from the butter, cheese and bread.  I have included 2 sets of facts for you.   First set is with cheese and bread.

6 Servings

Calories		335.8
Total Fat		20.2 g
	Saturated Fat	11.3 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.8 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	5.2 g
Cholesterol		58.5 mg
Sodium		2,185.3 mg
Potassium		151.5 mg
Total Carbohydrate		25.6 g
	Dietary Fiber	2.1 g
	Sugars	2.0 g
Protein		10.3 g

Facts without cheese and bread. 

Calories		225.8
Total Fat		16.9 g
	Saturated Fat	9.6 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.6 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	4.5 g
Cholesterol		48.1 mg
Sodium		1,928.3 mg
Potassium		145.7 mg
Total Carbohydrate		11.5 g
	Dietary Fiber	1.6 g
	Sugars	1.4 g
Protein		5.5 g