mmm... soup

It's that time of year again.  When you wake up surprised to find your toes are cold, go searching for warmer blankets and have to defrost your car in the morning.  Yup, it's fall.  Which also means it's cold & flu season.

I had planned to share an awesome recipe for caprese salad, a nice fresh & refreshing meal.  Which seemed like a great idea yesterday when it was so warm & sunny that I even got a bit of a sunburn.  Upon seeing today's autumn chill take over BC, I thought instead it might be time for a little soup.

Onion soup is one of my favorites of all time.  It's so easy to make and really versatile.  Plus it also seems to cure most anything that ails me.  The minute I have a sore throat or feel run down, I turn to onion soup.

ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 walla walla or other sweet onions (these type are really big, so if you can't find them use double the amount of small yellow onions)
• 8 cups beef broth (you can use veggie stock too)
• a few sprigs of fresh thyme (or 1 tbsp dried thyme)

First thing's first, deal with your onions.  This may take a little while depending on how many times you need to take a cry-break.  If you wear contacts at all I'd suggest putting them in, as I've found when I'm wearing mine I'm totally cry-free.  My Dad insists on putting peeled onions in the freezer for a minute, and I've also heard of running them under the water after peeling.  Whatever your method is, get it done.  You want to cut the onions in whole rounds (think onion rings).  But keep them fairly fine, no one wants to chew their soup.

After you've finished slicing up your onions into rings, take a big soup pot and put it on the stove on medium.  Add in 1 tbsp olive oil and swish it around to coat the bottom of the pot.  Toss in your sliced up onions and give them a good stir.  

Here's the part where most recipes would tell you to caramelize the onions.  I'll be honest, I'm not that patient.  Especially not if I'm feeling cold & sick.  What I do is cook them on medium for about 20 minutes until they're starting to get clear & have reduced in volume.

While the onions are cooking away prepare your broth.  You can used canned, but I usually use bouillon.  If you're really ambitious and have fresh stock, by all means use it.  Add the broth to the onions (after they've gone translucent), give everything another stir.  Chuck in your thyme (whatever form it's in), and stir it up again gently.

Cover your pot, reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for another 20 minutes or so.  You can leave this on low simmering for a few hours too if you'd like.  When I'm sick I'll leave this to simmer for most of the day, and eat a cup every hour or so.  Usually by the next day I'm feeling 100% better.

Happy fall everyone!