October Cooking Club Menu and Recipes

[spotty_dog]

I am making beef stock today, maybe soup tomorrow. (Yes, making the stock, because I am a dork who likes making stock but I've never made a beef one. What better time to try it than for French onion soup, where the stock is like half the flavor!)

I have a cheap enameled oval roasting pan and a stainless steel stock pot. Not sure which I'll use for the soup.

[Michele]

I tried to buy the crocks today so I could finish the soup....I went to BedBath&Beyond and saw a set of CorningWare....but I didn't need all those pieces. So I went to Target and looked and saw two sets of two ramekins...but neither are broiler safe.

What is broiler safe and where'd ya get it?

I think I've seen something like this at the Libbey Factory Outlet in town. I guess I'll drive out there tomorrow.

[civilspouse]

I'm heading to the store to buy the ingredients. DD wants to make pizza for dinner tonight. I'll make the soup this afternoon so it can rest for a day. Yum!

I realized that these recipes call for some specific equipment like the Dutch oven and the Bundt pan. I don't have any suggestions for getting around using a Bundt pan. However, with the soup, one reviewer said they made it on the stove top in a regular stock pot. I think you could use an oven-safe stock pot as well, maybe check more often to make sure it isn't getting too brown? If don't have broiler-safe soup bowls and will just melt the cheese on the bread under the broiler and then put the toasts on top of the soup.

Thanks for the tip. I want to try to make the soup, but I wasn't sure if I could do it without a dutch oven and I didn't want to get one just for this recipe. I can't think of anything else I would use it for and I'm running out of storage space in my kitchen. Thanks again.

[HouseofWool]

I tried the soup in our non-stick caphelon stock pot and the onions ended up burnt. I will try it again tomorrow and reduce the time in the oven dramatically.

[Michele]

Ate the soup without the broilersafe crocks...did the cheese on the bread method.

It was really good (except I could detect a slight burnt taste - Russ couldn't). I really liked that it wasn't as salty as French Onion Soup often is. I used vegetable broth instead of beef broth and I used a German red wine instead of Sherry. We are having left over soup tonight too! Definitely something I will make again. I didn't cut the onions small enough and there were big chunks of onions in the soup that made it a little difficult to eat.

I'm making the mini bundt cakes tonight.

I made the cake yesterday and it was really good. DH is not a real sweet tooth guy but he loved it. I got a new pan for the occasion, $13 from Target and worth it for this cake. I substituted soy milk with a splash of vinegar for the buttermilk (unable to just follow a recipe!) and it was still moist and yummy.

The soup - oh my that is a time intensive soup!! Every step took longer than the recipe said for me and my onions still were not as brown as the photos that were posted. I started at 6:30 and it is now midnight on the last step of simmering! I used the pot from my crock pot to make it in (no dutch oven) and it seems to be fine. I also used all chicken stock - decided against going all veg but beef is a bit much for me. It smells good but I have never had French Onion Soup before so I don't know what it is supposed to taste like. Hopefully DH and MIL will approve.

I'll post photos tomorrow!

[scrub-jay]

We're off to buy a Bundt pan this weekend and give the recipes a shot. We'll let you know how the cakes turn out as we'll have to tweak the recipe for high altitude.

bump for Vishenka

[HouseofWool]

Okay - I made the cake tonight and it was a hit. It was moist and dense and delish. I liked the butter in the glaze, it made it much richer.

I don't particularly like french onion soup and I thought this one had a bit too much thyme for my liking. My folks loved it though.

[spotty_dog]

Sounds like I'm awfully late to the party but it's still October and I have all this beef broth and onions, so here goes. My eyes and nose are streaming but the onions are in the oven! (In my sad little enameled roasting pan that is in no way a Le Creuset Dutch Oven, LOL.) Now I have to figure out how to get some bread for the topping by the time the soup is done, when I don't feel like leaving the house. LOL. With the oven occupied I think my only option is to bake a loaf of white bread in the bread machine.

[spotty_dog]

OK, well, it was amazingly good. Way better than I expected. Whoo! I love French onion soup and this was probably the best one I ever had! Sweeter than expected, but when it was salted it was the perfect balance of salt and sweet, and while it wasn't as rich-tasting as I expected (because of my homemade stock I presume) that was a plus for me because I was able to have two bowls. And the onions cooked down so beautifully -- usually I leave the onions in the bowl in a restaurant but I snarfed these up!

Mods: Used white wine instead of sherry (I thought I had a bottle of red on hand but I was wrong!), homemade beef stock instead of all of the liquid (it wasn't a very robust stock so it didn't need the extra water or anything), bread machine French bread instead of baguette, and Swiss cheese instead of Gruyere (just couldn't justify it at $18 to $20 per pound!) Oh, and I baked then broiled the toasts instead of using an ovenproof crock (I found some cute Corningware ones but they were $6 apiece and I just couldn't do that for one recipe to serve just me and Eddy, not this time.)

Eddy said it was "yummy nummy" and I'm sure you *all* appreciate how nice that is to hear, LOL. Admittedly he only ate the toasts, but they were soaked in broth and he is usually not that adventurous. DH is not a French onion soup fan so I made it on a night he's not here for dinner, but I left instructions for him to make his own toasts if he wants to try some when he gets home.

I bought a bundt pan and by golly I plan to make the pumpkin cake, but I haven't yet managed to get my pumpkin steamed.

[Vishenka69]

Thanks Nellie for bumping. I have no idea how I missed this thread. I'll try these this weekend.

[spotty_dog]

Bundt cake is in the oven for DH's birthday. I know it's not October but yeah. I have never had so many small appliances out for one recipe! I had my steamer to cook the pumpkin, food processor to puree it, stand mixer for the batter, and hand mixer for the egg whites. (I whipped them separately and folded them in, in hopes of counteracting the too-dense too-moist factor some of y'all had.) I also used less cinnamon (it makes DS splotchy) and allspice and threw in a dash of nutmeg just for shits n giggles.

BTW, DH claims he is still not a French onion soup fan, but he's a fan of my soup, because it's better than any French onion soup he's ever had. So a thumbs up there too I guess!

[Michele]

Bump. I'm planning to make the French onion soup again this weekend.

[Meenah]

The soup was wonderful. Now I want to make it again too.