I told you earlier about our day at the Amish but I didn’t show you what I bought…a box of HUGE onions.
At the auction they had a lot of three boxes like this. Â Kayla took one and I took the other two. Â We use so many onions at our house. Â Both Hubby and I love them and well being I am the cook, the rest of the family tolerates them.
This is a lot of onions though so I was trying to think of what to do with them all….that’s when I remembered the wonderful taste of the onions in the bottom of the pan after making Kelli’s Chicken recipe. Â That got me thinking..what if I do something similar with a beef roast and make French Onion Soup…so I did.
I took two of the HUGEST onions I had. Â If using regular onions I’d say use at least four. Â Chop them up and put them in the bottom of a oven dish. Â I used my cast iron one. Â From there…put in a beef roast. Â I added a pack of onion soup mix, a tablespoon of beef bouillon and two cups of water.
I covered it and cooked it all for 2 hours. Â It smelled wonderful. Â I removed the roast…then tasted the onion mix in the bottom of the pan. Â I added a little salt and pepper to taste and just a little more water.
From there I dished up four severing into bowl. Â I put a slice of French Bread on top and put a slice of Swiss cheese over that. Â I put all of the bowls onto a cookie sheet. Â Then into the oven on broil for a few minutes.
It was really good. Â Ever since we went to Chicago for a girls weekend years ago I’ve tried at various times to make some good French onion soup. Â This was the best ever and I am no longer looking for a recipe…this one is it.
Hubby isn’t a soup eater so I wondered what he’s think..he hasn’t even had French Onion Soup before…He really liked it!! Â By the way….the roast was really tasty too!
So what else am doing with all those onions…I can’t have onions like that and not make these homemade onion rings!!
Looks yummy! I make chicken fajitas with a large onion, two chicken breasts, a red or green pepper. Saute on medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne, and season salt.
You could also make bread and butter pickles.
I thought of another one. I chop an onion, zucchini, green pepper, and cooked potatoes. Toss with a little olive oil, salt and Montreal Steak seasoning. Grill in a grill pan or cook in a frying pan. If you don’t have cooked potatoes, microwave a couple for 2 1/2 minutes, chop and add to the pan. I’ve also added sliced carrots or green beans.
Jo, you can chop the onions up just like you did for the soup, spread them on a cookie sheet and freeze them. Once they have been frozen (usually overnight), you can place the frozen onions into freezer bags and add the frozen onions to foods to be cooked just like fresh onions. Freezing the onions will make them be softer after thawing so they would not be good to eat raw, but for cooking they will be just fine.
I have been doing this for several years just to keep from losing the last two or three in a bag after all we became empty nesters like you. Hubby and I like the onions added to hamburger steaks, to meatloaf, soups, etc. Wish I could have shared with you also…
Becky
When I have extra onions, I it put them in a leg of my panty hose with a knot tied between each onion then hang in a cool dry dark area. The onions will keep for a long time and all you have to do is just cut below a knot to retrieve an onion.
You might think we are crazy, but we freeze onions. DH cuts up using a French fry cutter. Then in zip locks to freeze. We cook all year with them.
Carmelized onions. I’ve never made them because something always comes up in my life when I buy a bag of onions intending to make them in the crockpot (all the Google recipes I’ve ever found simply use butter and onions), and when I finally remember, the onions are starting to go bad. Probably I’m not storing them properly. If you carmelize them on the stove, it apparently takes something like 45 minutes or even 1.5 hours I think I’ve seen. So I’ve always intended to try them in the crockpot where I don’t have to monitor them. Carmelizing onions apparently brings out the sweetness or mellowness or something like that and makes them a great side dish all on their own.
dehydrate some! You will be glad later to use them in recipes so you don’t have to chop onions when you are in a hurry :)