I’m extremely frugal, so in my eyes, wasting food is criminal. I always try to cook with ingredients already on hand, and this grilled cheese is a result of that. Using leftovers and items I needed to get rid of, I whipped up this cheesy and delectable grilled cheese. The caramelized onions stole the show, but the truffled fried potatoes came in a strong second. Of course, the gooey Gruyere cheese played its part, too!
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Though French onion soup isn’t your typical summer dish, I’ve never made the soup before, so I decided to give it a shot this weekend. I had to tweak the original recipe a bit, but otherwise, it turned out fantastic. The gooey cheese was definitely my favorite part. :)
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With the unexpected appearance of rain today, this soup turned out to be the perfect dish. It’s simple and comforting with a slightly gourmet twist. Though fairly easy to make, the soup is time-consuming. If you’ve caramelized onions before, I’m sure you understand. But, we all know the final product is well worth the wait–sweet and buttery onions that melt in your mouth. The addition of fried sage leaves and sage butter gave the soup that extra boost of flavor and complexity it needed.
Now the only thing that would make this soup even easier to make is an immersion blender. I’ve already asked Santa for one this year. :)
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My mom and I couldn’t decide on what to make for dinner two nights ago, but knew that we wanted to use what we already had in the fridge/pantry. We found a bag of potatoes in the pantry and tried to think of something to make with them. My mom steamed some broccoli and created a delicious concoction of pancetta, red pepper, onion and zucchini, both of which she made as side dishes. I thought it would be fun to use the broccoli and pancetta mixture as toppings for stuffed potatoes instead and to create a few different types of potatoes. Therefore, I proceeded to hunt online for another idea.
I stumbled across a recipe for a stuffed baked potato topped with caramelized onions cooked in Worcestershire sauce, sherry and garlic. As my taste buds have matured, I’ve grown quite fond of onions, possibly because of my parents affinity for the vegetable. Therefore, this recipe looked spectacular.
After I finished cooking the onions, I delicately draped them over the stuffed potatoes and sprinkled asiago cheese on top. The bite of the asiago and the starch of the potato helped tame the sweetness of the onions, caused by the addition of Worcestershire and sherry. When constructed, the potato truly looked gourmet.
In addition to my caramelized onion stuffed potato, my mom built two others—one with broccoli, cheese and chicken and one topped with the pancetta mixture described above. All three potatoes were scrumptious—I was extremely stuffed after the meal! (Cheesy pun, I know).
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