French Onion Soup, a Souffle, and More

A Toast: "To Your Health" in French to go along with the soup.

French Onion Soup: First you carmelize two large sweet onions in butter. We used Walla Walla Sweet Onions. You carmelize butter in a saucepan with butter. You heat the onions until they turn a golden brown, then you add a couple tablespoons of flour to the onions and stir until it mixes. You add that to a pot of stock. If you don't want to make your own. You can buy a couple large cans or boxes of beef stock. Then you add one-half cup of sweet vermouth, and 3 tablespoons of cognac.

You heat the soup for about an hour and one half, letting the alcohol burn off. Then you serve it with a piece of french bread on the top with swiss or Gruyere cheese sprinkled over the top.


After seeing the movie Julie & Julia, I wanted to learn some more about French cooking so MacKenzie and I planned a dinner party. We invited a few people, and made some French Onion Soup, three souffles and a caramel/almond mousse for dessert. Of course the mousse was my favorite part--well, the mousse and my new earrings. MacKenzie and I made earrings to match out cutesy little aprons-okay, we're a couple of nerds-I can admit it and that's okay.

Julie and Julia (Child) - the Move

Went and saw the movie. It was super cute. I LOVED it. A great show to go see for a girl's night out.

First, a couple girlfriends came for dinner. We had fondue - or more like fondon't. I took the recipe out of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and I wouldn't add Nutmeg again. I love how she said add "a pinch" I guess I pinched too large a peckle of nutmeg 'cause it sure tasted a tad too sweet. Maybe it's because I use Nutmeg more for the holidays but it just didn't taste like it belonged in a cheese dip - which is what fondue is supposed to be.

Then we had artichoke's, I didn't quite make it to the Hollandaise sauce, which was supposed to be served in the center. I just used melted butter and mayonnaise -similar but not the true thing.

So we ate and had a glass of wine and we were on our way. Great night.

Julie and Julia - Crepes Suzette Flambees FAIL!

I love to cook. MacKenzie loves everything French. The two go together perfectly with this book: Mastering The Art of French Cooking - well . . . almost. More like Gran Marnier Crepes - but I'm not complaining. It was a fun TRY.



So, we've decided to do a dinner party Sunday night: MacKenzie, Kara and I will work together to make the meal, like Billy Crystal used to say, "Simply Mahhrvelous".

But . . . I know how anytime I plan something Murphy's Law takes over: Whenever something can go wrong - it will.

So, I decided to do a pre-party test. My husband and I tried-out one of the recipes by making Crepes Suzette, with an Orange Butter, Flambees. (Pages 649-652)






We had a few glitches in our performance but the meal came out tasting, "Complicatedly Marvelous!" A little heavy on the Grand Marnier but oh well.

We ran a little short of batter - we have a lot of people in our family - but the worst part was that the Crepes Fourrees et Flambees are supposed to be dramatic and flame with a short but distinct fire. The fire lit for a second - but you can't even see it in the video.

The recipe says: "Pour over them the orange liqueur and cognac. Avert your face and ignite the liqueur with a lighted match."

I did everything just as directed - one small problem - no flame, or at least not enough of a flame to actually see it in film.

Next time, I'll make sure I have a NEW lighter. We couldn't get the lighter to light enough to put a flame to the liqueur. FLAMBEES FAIL! :(

Oh well, there's still Sunday night's dinner to look forward too.

I love cooking on cast iron but it's heavy and gets so hot - Lars had to hold the pan to roll the batter around.





And, for those of you planning on grilling steak this summer, here's an Oregonian FoodDay recipe that I hear is Fab: so if you try it, let me know if you like it.