EASY TO MAKE SLOW COOKER FRENCH ONION SOUP

French onion soup ready to be served.

Shredded Gruyère cheese added to the bowl.

Of all the soups I have made over the years, I haven't made a French onion soup. The crop of winter onions recently harvested from the garden provided the momentum for me to think about making this soup. I decided to make this just as French onion soup without the bread and baked cheese on top. I wanted to add some shredded Gruyère to a bowl of soup and keep it simple.

In caramelizing the onions in the slow cooker you can either cook them on low heat for eight to ten hours overnight or cook them during the day. I opted to start cooking them at 7:15 am and cooked them for nine and a half hours. The slow cooking process causes the onions to sweat and there is liquid created so no worries about burning the bottom of the pan.

Since the onions I was using ranged in size to create three pounds of onions, I had about 15 onions to peel and chop. Doing it by hand would result in lots of teary eyes and take a bit of time. I elected to work smarter and used the slicer attachment for the food processor. Using the food processor and slicing the onions thin was one of the smarter things I have done at 7 am.

Once the onions are caramelized you have a few options depending on when you want to consume the soup. After the rest of the ingredients are added, you can cook it on low in the slow cooker for another five plus hours, cook it on high in the slow cooker for another two plus hours or use an electric pressure cooker to speed up the whole process. I chose the electric pressure cooker and cooked it on medium to high pressure for 20 minutes. The machine I use has a number of features including slow cooker and pressure cooker. The soup, served as part of supper, was wonderful. It had a great flavour and the sweetness of the onions and addition of balsamic vinegar was a good combination. It is soup that one can serve to company or have for lunches throughout the week.

Some of the garden onions left after I peeled and chopped 15 of them.

Onions added to the slow cooker

I added another 30 minutes to the original nine hours of cooking time.

Onions are looking good after eight hours of slow cooking.

INGREDIENTS:

3 pounds of yellow onions, peeled and chopped into thin slices
2 tbsp olive or other good quality oil
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp kosher salt
pepper to taste

8 to 9 cups of beef broth
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Gruyère cheese, shredded

INGREDIENTS:

1. Place the onions into the slow cooker. Add the oil, butter, salt and pepper. Combine well. Set for eight to ten hours on low heat depending on the time you have. Every few hours open the lid to stir.

2. Add the beef broth and balsamic vinegar and cook on low heat for another five hours. You have other options if you want to speed up the process including high heat on the slow cooker or using an electric pressure cooker. Details are provided above the photos.

3. Serve with grated Gruyère cheese added to each bowl. Serves 6 to 8 people.

PALEO PLUM CRISP

Plum crisp just out of the oven and cooling.

Having bought a large tub of regular size red burgundy plums at Costco (about 12 to 14 in the tub) I realized that they were going to get soft quickly. Most were stored in the fridge and after eating the four juicy plums left in the fruit basket on the counter, I was thinking that the ones stored in the fridge would likely be soft. After eating about a quarter of a plum from the fridge, my assumptions were correct. The options to consume the eight and 3/4 remaining plums were to either bake with them, stew them or freeze them (a good fall back option). I decided to bake them and make a crisp. The oven was already on as I was roasting a chicken. I baked the crisp in two dishes, a small white ramekin and a glass dish. I used chopped walnuts in the topping. I also did not peel the plums. After cutting the plums up, there was so much juice I had to drain off some of the juice.

The crisp recipe I used was my standard one used to make cherry, rhubarb or apple crisp. A crisp is a crisp and the topping can be used with any kind of fruit. I like to enjoy crisp not only as a dessert but also for breakfast. I add the crisp like a topping to a small bowl of plain greek yogurt instead of adding granola. 

Plums mixed with ingredients in the bowl.

Fruit placed in a small ramekin, topping added and then baked.

The second dish was made in a larger baking dish. Fruit placed in a glass baking dish, followed by the crisp. Crisp was then baked.

INGREDIENTS:

Fruit:

8 medium to large size plums, pitted and sliced into chunks
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp sugar or stevia
2 tbsp arrowroot powder or minute tapioca

Topping:
1/2 cup slivered almonds or chopped pecans or chopped walnuts
3/4 cup almond flour
2 tbsp coconut flour
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup coconut oil (at room temperature) or butter

DIRECTIONS:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, add the fruit, lemon juice, sugar and arrowroot powder and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix together all of the topping except the coconut oil or butter. Add the oil or butter and mix using a fork or pastry blender so that it forms into crumbs or clumps. Using honey will make it more like clumps.

Grease with oil or butter a medium size baking pan. Add the fruit mixture, spread it evenly across the pan and add the topping to cover the fruit. Bake for at least 30 minutes or until it is bubbling and the topping has browned. Serves 6 to 8 depending on appetites.