French Onion Soup - A Quick Slice of Heaven

As I havent posted in a long time, here is a quickie.  French Onion Soup seems to have this mystique of high culture yet comfort food.  The fact of the matter is it is pretty easy to "Whip up" as they say.  The only hard part is the base or stock for the soup might take some time if you start with good beef bones.

So for stock, get about a quart or so of beef stock.  For the onions, slice and saute three large onions (I serving six, here) in butter until browned.  After the onions are done, put them into the beef stock to simmer and the flavors to distribute.  Ladle the soup into broiler proof crocks making sure to distribute all the onions.  Top with ripped up bread chunks and cheese.  Here I used Ramano, but a better melting cheese is preferable.  Then pop it under the broiler until the top looks good, remove and serve.  It is as simple as that.  As our family is under the weather, this particular batch came loaded with crushed garlic as well.

Most Unusual Home School Lunch

Well we have a pig or a cow coming in several days so we defrosted a bunch of ribs, roasts, and stew meat kicking around the bottom of the freezer.  One of the items was probably a five or six pound standing rib roast (prime rib).  As we found in our refrigerator several days after defrosting, I decided we had to cook it off this evening so it didn't go bad.  

How is This Food Related?

Scott came back from his European concert band tour.  Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp's Southern Winds Concert Band 2010 has some great tunes which I'll get posted somewhere.  In any event, this was a second encore number they used to close their shows.  This was recorded at their homecoming concert in West Michigan.  Listen to the power in the 40 - 60 second mark of the clip.  Not bad vocals for a concert band.  Listen or download all songs here: http://tinyurl.com/22okxy9 Be sure to check out the opening to Pory & Bess, & Stars & Stripes.  Oh yes, Scott came home about 20 pounds more then when he left.

You MUST Make This Ketchup!

I've looked at this post for several months now and this morning finely whipped up a batch as a base for BBQ.  I haven't taken it to BBQ yet, but this ketchup is all natural and made with ingredients we always have on hand in our household.  The taste is EXACTLY ketchup.  Follow the recipe, don't ad lib to start and you will not be disappointed.  No refined sugar, no HFC, nothing.  Now I will add some love, and Emeril says, and it will move to BBQ.

Amount	Unit	Ingredient
24	ounces	tomato paste
1	tbsp	whey
0.5	cup	fish sauce
0.75	cup	honey
Several	cloves	Garlic
0.25	tsp	cayenne pepper
0.5	tbsp	allspice
1	stick	cinnamon

Sugar - The Bitter Truth

This talk is simply outstanding.  As a personal testimony, I started drastically reducing my carbs in the very early part of this year and the result is staggering.  I'll have more to share later.  Yes, I still do eat bread, just a slice every now and then.  Also you will need to check out the book: Good Calories Bad Calories as that is singing from the same hymnal as well.

Whole Grain Pizza

Here is a brief look at some whole grain pizza.  I'll have some more pics later, but this is some good stuff. Mix up the dough, let is sit in the fridge at least 24 hours. Pull it out two hours ahead of cooking. Make the pizza, cook it on the grill.

Josiah March Quintet 2010

Well, 2010 Ensemble came and went.  Yes, the Fab Five scored a "1" again.  The judge had some good constructive comments for the lads.  I had even more fun with iMovie on Sunday.  Anyway, enjoy.