I love this soup. Who can beat cheese and onion in rich broth?

But like so many restaurant foods, when we started cooking at home a lot, the restaurant versions all seemed too salty. I don't order it anymore because there is just too much risk of it tasting like a salt lick. Soup's tricky that way. But if I make it, I'm in control.

There are a lot of onion soup recipes out there, with some variation. Some folks insist you need to use yellow onions, or white, or Vidalia or red. There's the white wine camp and the red wine camp and the cognac camp. There's apple cider in some, and balsamic vinegar in others. Some recipes include three hours of baking onions. Some use chicken stock, some use beef stock and some use a mix.

This is a fairly quick*, delicious soup. It's hearty and cheesy and warm and rich and a bit sweet. You could even make a vegetarian version with mushroom stock.

Let's do this, shall we?

Since I'm not doing a vegetarian version, I needed to start with beef stock. Several weeks ago, I ordered something called "soup bones" from the buying club. This was new territory for me. I'm not going to show pictures, because that is somewhat horrifying, but I made a bed of rough chopped carrots and onions and celery and garlic, and spritzed everything with olive oil, and put the bones (ok, it was one huge bone) on top. The bone had a good amount of meat on it, so that all roasted together with a tablespoon of tomato paste (I read that somewhere) and hung around for about an hour in the oven until it was roasty. Then I just simmered it on low all day, and strained it FOUR TIMES. The last strain was after a night in the fridge, and the fat had all congealed on the top so it was pretty easy to remove.

I told my mother I was making this and she said it was funny, she was going to make onion soup soon too. And I said, "Are you making the stock, or buying it?" And she said she planned to make the stock, and asked what that entailed, and I told her and she decided to buy stock. So, you know, make your own decision. I'm saving salt this way.

But really, what you need to start with are onions. I used red. Other folks have other opinions. I used three pounds of red onions, which was four huge onions.

I sliced them, but not paper thin. I considered busting out the mandoline for this, but I figured with the caramelization, they were just going to turn to mush anyhow.

With four tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil,

I set them to caramelize.

Then I chopped up some shallots to add depth.

They went in.

After about 10 minutes on medium-high, when they were soft and turning sweet,

I sprinkled on a half teaspoon of kosher salt.

Then I let them keep caramelizing for the rest of an hour, stirring just occasionally.

This is an hour. Look at that fond.

They're pretty much a liquid.

I sprinkled a third cup of flour on top and stirred to coat.

They cooked for about five minutes. Then it was time to deglaze.

I put almost a cup of malbec - more than 3/4 - in a measuring cup, and filled the rest with balsamic vinegar.

Folks use all sorts of wine for this, so feel free.

Then the stock.

10 cups.

 

 

And herbs and such. A bay leaf.

 

A little more than a tablespoon of fresh (frozen) thyme.

A good bit of black pepper.

Now let it simmer. 40 minutes? Until it's all come together and you're ready to eat.

Meanwhile, find some bread. I keep the ends of bread in my freezer, but a normal person might need to get a baguette. I've got a lot of soup here, but I only need enough bread ready for four servings - two tonight, two for lunch tomorrow and the rest will freeze. So I dug up a piece of french bread and some miscellany.

I cut it into cubes and toasted it in the oven.

When the soup was done, or rather, we were ready to eat, because it had been simmering an hour at that point, remove the bay leaf

and pour it into individual oven-safe bowls** - on a rimmed baking sheet. I happen to have made a good decision at Goodwill years ago. Sometimes I buy stuff and it just sits, other times I get soup crocks.

Top with bread

and gruyere.

And into a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes to melt.

Have it with a salad, not only because it's beef stock covered in cheese and you just should, but also because it's piping hot right now. Have a conversation.

It won't be long.

Remember how I only added a sprinkle of salt to the onions when they were caramelizing? The only salt here is that, plus the cheese, plus whatever's in your bread, so maybe sprinkle your bowl lightly. Taste first.

This made eight to ten decent sized servings.

*soup quick, not like, grilled cheese quick.

**don't have an oven safe bowl? No worries. Melt cheese on bread in the oven, and toss that on top of the soup.

This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. 

Ingredients

• 3 pounds red onions, sliced

 

• 10 cups beef broth

 

• 4 tablespoons butter

 

• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

 

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

 

• 1 cup shallots, chopped

 

• 1 bay leaf

 

• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme

 

• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

 

• 3/4 cup red wine

 

• 1 teaspoon black pepper

 

• 1/3 cup -per serving- stale bread, cubed

 

• 1 oz -per serving- gruyere or swiss, sliced

Instructions

• Slice onions and chop shallots

 

• Heat butter and olive oil on medium.

 

• Add onions and shallots and caramelize on medium, stirring occasionally.

 

• After 10 minutes, sprinkle with kosher salt and stir. Visit and stir occasionally, but allow onions to stick a bit and create a fond on the bottom of the pot. Leave to caramelize about an hour or until very soft.

 

• Add wine and vinegar. Scrape fond from pot. Add stock. Heat to simmer.

 

• Add bay leaf (remember you'll have to remove it later), thyme and black pepper. Simmer 40 minutes or so.

 

• Meanwhile, toast croutons and slice cheese.

 

• When soup is done, pour into individual oven-safe bowls, top with croutons and cheese and bake until melted.

Details

• Prep time: 10 mins

 

• Cook time: 1 hour 50 mins

 

• Total time: 2 hours

 

• Yield: 8-10 servings

 

A haiku:

Eggplant, your flowers

Delicate and lavender

But no eggplant.  Why?

Alternately:

I only wanted

To eat one eggplant, just one

Alas, there was none.

Meet Aaron Bauman!

What do you do for a living?
I'm a software engineer at Message Agency. We do websites for nonprofit organizations... do you know of any?
 
How did you hear about the South Philly Food Co-op?
I heard about the co-op from a Passyunk Square Civic Association email.
 
Why did you join the food co-op?
I try to support small businesses whenever I can, so I'm stoked about having an alternative to Big Box grocery in the neighborhood. The equity share price seems like a bargain.

How long have you lived in South Philly?
I moved with my girlfriend Leigh, to whom I'm now married, from Astoria New York about four and a half years ago.
 
Which neighborhood of South Philly do you live in?
I love all the tiny little neighborhoods in Philadelphia. It's always fun to hear different folks' opinions of the boundaries. Leigh and I are right around 8th and Reed, which is technically Passyunk Square. But, depending on who you talk to, we're somewhere between East Passyunk, Italian Market, Bella Vista, Pennsport, Southwark, Dickinson Narrows. Well, in New York people are always adding "Heights" to the end of neighborhood names to make them sound fancy. We like to call our block of Franklin Street, "Franklin Heights". 
 
What do you like best about your neighborhood?
I try not to play favorites. Here are my top few favorites in no particular order: Capitolo Community Garden, Fond, Devil's Den, FrancoLuigi's Pizzeria, our proximity to Center City, our proximity to Citizen's Bank Park, and our proximity to I-95.

What is your favorite meal to cook and why?
I know it's a stereotypical guy thing, but I love putting anything on the grill. I like to grill salmon, ribs, burgers, and sometimes even vegetables. Basically anything that goes well with beer.

What are your favorite products?
I prefer whatever I can get in the bulk bin.
 
Honey Crisp or Pink Lady?
Gala all the way.
 
Kale or Collards?
I don't really eat either, and I don't have anything funny to say about them either. 
 
Bacon or Sausage?
Bacon. For. Ever.

Milk Chocolate or Dark Chocolate?
Hmm... that just gave me an idea for a beer:  Dark Chocolate Milk Stout.  I'm sure it's been done before, but that might have to be my next batch.

We’d love to hear from you! Please consider sharing with us why you became a member-owner. Email [email protected] to help with this feature.

Thanks to everyone who came out last Wednesday night to The Wishing Well (in the rain!) for our fundraiser. It was a complete success because we had six more member-owners join us!  Some people stopped by to say hi and pick up their membership cards but if you weren't one them, don't worry - we put them in the mail today!

We've had some questions come up about member-owner numbers (you'll see it on the back of your card - here is mine).

We've recently upgraded to a content management system called CiviCRM to help us with our business needs, so if your membership number is different than what you originally received it's because of this database change.  Remember the primary benefit of carrying around your card will be access to our wonderful Shop South Philly program.

[Top photos by Albert Yee]

Hellos!  My little newspaper-wrapped tomatoes are still ripening.  They are now varying shades of yellow and orange...getting close!  Hopefully by next week I'll have something more exciting to report.

But!  A very exciting thing happened this past week:  I got a seed catalog in the mail!  Okay, I realize that doesn't sound all that exciting but it does mean thinking about warmer weather and how is that not exciting during this albeit-not-very-cold December?  Truthfully I usually make it to January or February before I start getting so sick of winter that I want to throw up but, hey, it's never too early.  With that in mind I'm going to share some of what I learned in this first year and what I will do differently next year.


This past year I was all about vegetables and other things to eat.  I planted a few purely decorative flowers but I really didn't care that much about them.  That's why my backyard ended up looking like this:

Now there's nothing wrong with, oh, 30-40 tomato plants in a small South Philly patio - unless you're a normal person - but I will admit that it was maybe overkill.  I originally planted all those tomato seeds because I assumed a lot wouldn't sprout or would die.  Well, pretty much all of them sprouted so I think I'll try not planting all 60 seeds at once next year.  Though it was kind of fun to pretend I lived in a forest of tomatoes, I would rather have a forest of all different kinds of plants.

The things that didn't work for me were the squash and eggplants.  They both grew fine (eggplants are still growing for some reason) and flowered but then produced no fruit.  I think the eggplants were just too slow or didn't have enough space or something but I have a sneaking suspicion that the squash did not get pollinated correctly.  Squash plants are supposed to have both male and female flowers - the females produce fruit but not without pollen from the males.  This is where bees come in, spreading the pollen from the male to the female (source.)  I definitely saw lots of bees around the flowers but no actual fruit.  Then again, space is a constant issue so maybe they just didn't have enough room, either.

I enjoyed my sunflowers along the back fence but they actually got too tall:

I love sunflowers but maybe I won't choose the "mammoth huge gigantic" variety this time (for the record these are Mammoth Russians.)  Here I was all worried that my sunflowers would be small and puny and then they grew taller than the tree.

I'm also going to plant my kale and chard earlier.  I've pretty much given up on them because of all this rain, but I really was looking forward to some nice leafy greens.  Here's what I got:

And it's been downhill since then.  I may try to overwinter a few just so it's not a complete wash.

And now that I know what I won't do, it's time to pick out what I want to plant!  But first I need to pore over these catalogs.  Come back next week!

Join us at The Wishing Well at 767 South 9th Street (one of our Shop South Philly partners!) for some great drink and food specials tonight from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm. You can RSVP on Facebook or just show up and meet some of your community members. Come out for a beer and fried dill pickles and support your co-op! We'll be accepting membership applications for anyone who would like to join. Drink Specials: $3 local draughts, $4 well liquor drinks, $5 glasses of Merlot and Chardonnay, $5 bottles of Rowhouse Red and a shot of Tullamore Dew, $3 shots of Jameson. Food Specials: 1/2 off select food items (which are marked on the menu with an asterisk.) We'll also have membership cards available for pickup for existing member-owners.

 

 I had this butternut squash, and I didn't want to make soup, or lasagna, and it was sitting on the counter for a little while, in fact, it was from the CSA, so it was getting on in weeks. It was time to roast it up. I also needed to make some appetizery-things for an event.

Butternut squash is sweet, but it goes very well with savory things. It likes to be with cheese. It likes to be a little bit spicy. I'm not one to make up sweet potatoes and top them with marshmallows, so while other people swear by adding brown sugar to winter squashes, I like to add onion-y flavors and saltiness and heat. This is that, on a cracker.

Once it's softened and bright orange, I just sliced it into manageable pieces. Winter squash is a chore to peel, so I avoid that at all costs.I started by gutting my squash and roasting it, open side down, on a pan spritzed with olive oil. 45 minutes or so at 375 - until it's very fork-tender.I use a melon baller to remove the seeds, but a spoon works just as well.

I ran a fork between the skin and the flesh of the squash to "peel" it, and when that got tedious, I used my hands. You'll want to let the squash cool a bit, just for your own comfort.

This was two cups of cooked squash in the end.

Then cheese, because of course, cheese. Cream cheese would have worked fine here, but I had some local chevre from the buying club. Most of it was plain, but a third of it had chives in it. I don't expect your groceries look like mine, so add chives. Three ounces of chevre, a bit of caynne and some chives and black pepper.

I hit it up on high with my immersion blender, but you could just dump it in a regular blender or food processor on "puree."

Covered and into the oven at 350 for 20 minutes or so or until warmed throughout.

Serve with crackers and veg.

This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. 

Ingredients

• 1 medium butternut squash


• 3 oz chevre or cream cheese


• 1/2 tablespoon minced chives


• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne


• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375.


• Slice squash in half and remove seeds and strings. Roast face down (open side down) on a lightly oiled baking dish, 45 minutes or until very tender.


• Slice squash into manageable pieces and remove skin (you may want to let it cool first) using fork or fingers.


• Puree squash, chives, cheese and cayenne and pepper until smooth. Add spices cautiously and taste.


• Bake covered at 350 for 20 minutes or until warmed throughout.

Details

• Prep time: 15 mins


• Cook time: 1 hour 5 mins


• Total time: 1 hour 20 mins


• Yield: many appetizer servings

It feels strange to say that, especially because of what I found in my garden this past weekend:

Oh tomatoes, you just want to keep growing, don't you?  I don't blame you, the weather this past week has been unseasonably warm (but that didn't stop me from using my back patio as a back up "refrigerator" as we cooked for Thanksgiving.)  Now it seems we're actually moving toward cooler weather so this little baby sadly didn't make it.

I am in the process of finally getting rid of all my tomato plants (sniff sniff) but I couldn't bring myself to throw out all the green tomatoes.  So here's my actual last harvest of green tomatoes:

I didn't really know what to do with them and my fridge was already full of Thanksgiving leftovers so I decided to try ripening them.  Since I had so many I tried the wrapping-them-in-newspaper method:

I had so many I had to use two roasting pans!

I haven't seen much change yet, but we'll see what next week brings.  In the meantime, here are some handsome young tomatoes for you to admire:

And here's a last Beauty Queen, nice and yellow and striped:

Are people's gardens still growing?  I left my poor eggplant out there even though I've given up hope of ever getting any eggplant from it...I just can't bear to let it go quite yet.

Please tell us, have you been enjoying this weekly series? I'm so curious that I scroll right to the question, "Why did you become a member-owner?"  This week we are featuring Albert Yee, who is a fantastic photographer and has helped us capture many co-op events.  (Psst...keep reading below to see what Albert says about milk chocolate, I feel the same way!)

Meet Albert Yee

What do you do for a living?
I'm a freelance photographer and also work part-time at the local food non-profit, Fair Food, in Reading Terminal Market.

How did you hear about the South Philly Food Co-op?
I heard about the co-op right in the beginning but because I wasn't living close enough to South Philly, I didn't take a selfish interest. After moving south of South Street, I saw it was well on its way and decided to join.

Why did you join the food co-op?
The notion of the food co-op was foreign to me prior to moving to Philadelphia and the business model is an intriguing one. I was aware of other member-owner groups, but I had never been a part of one. As my interest in the local food movement has grown, the thought of having a direct say in the products that will appear on the shelves of a place I
co-own, sounded like something I wanted to be a part of.

How long have you lived in South Philly?
I live north of Washington Avenue but south of South Street.  I normally just say the Bella Vista/Italian Market area.  I've been in Philadelphia for 8 years, South Philly for 1 year.

What do you like best about your neighborhood?
I love the proximity to really tasty and inexpensive eats. All the Mexican spots (Taqueria la Veracruzana was my favorite prior to moving to the area), Vietnamese eats (I'm on a quest to find the perfect pho and so far Pho 75 has it) and the breadth of 9th Street is unbeatable.

What is your favorite meal to cook and why?
Lately it's between stir fry and spatchcocked chicken. Stir fry because it's a great way to incorporate a rush of a number of ingredients at all different times into the wok. Spatchcocked chicken over shallots, garlic and herb fingerling potatoes is super easy to prepare and yields a lot of food. Plus, spatchcock is fun to say.

What are your favorite products?
I'm a big cheese fan and living by DiBruno and Claudio's and working at Fair Food gives me unlimited access to it. The mozzarella at Claudio's is consistently the best I've had because of its freshness, which is so important with mozzarella. DiBruno is the gatekeeper of my favorite cheese from Neal's Yard Dairy: Berkswell. It's a delectable sheep's milk cheese with a whopping price tag, but every once in awhile I like to splurge on it. Local creameries produce some awesome stuff as well, such as Sue Miller of Birchrun Hills Farm.  She makes an incredible blue called Birchrun Blue which is creamy, dense, and rich. (It gives traditional Stiltons a run for their money.)  Lastly, Cherry Grove's Toma Primavera is fantastic in the summer with it's golden glow. I've been to both farms to see how the cows roam free, it's something everyone should see.

Honey Crisp or Pink Lady?
My favorite apple is the Gold Rush which is a late season apple like the Pink Lady.  It has the sweet/tart/crunchy/juicy qualities of Honey Crisp, but heavier on the tart, lighter on the sweet. The best thing about them is that you can store them in your fridge in the fall and if you're disciplined enough, enjoy them 6 months later still crunchy.

Kale or Collards?
Lacinato kale all the way. But it's been awhile since I've had some proper ham hock'd greens which could sway me back to collards.

Bacon or Sausage?
The double hickory smoked bacon available at Fair Food is my single favorite food item I buy on the regular. It's absolutely heavenly and importantly, it's *hickory* smoked, not the lighter applewood.

Milk Chocolate or Dark Chocolate?
Milk chocolate is fake chocolate. Dark chocolate all the way.

We’d love to hear from you! Please consider sharing with us why you became a member-owner. Email [email protected] to help with this feature.

Hello!  I thought that since we got that surprise snow that things would be pretty dead out in the garden.  But there's still lots of these:

I think I've already documented here that I am not the biggest fan of green tomatoes.  I would really, really like to like them but they are just too hard and sour.  But I may try dredging a few in cornmeal and frying them to see how it goes.  I think the secret to good fried green tomatoes is a good remoulade...

Of course, there are lots of other things to do with green tomatoes.  Like pickling!  I love pretty much all pickles but I don't quite trust myself on the canning front yet.  That's moving a little too far into domesticity for me.  Maybe next year.

What I'll likely do with most of these is try to ripen them inside.  I've experimented with this a little and here's the method that seems to work best for me:

When you pick the tomatoes, be sure to leave some of the stem or vine attached.  I read somewhere to do this (I'm not sure on the reasoning) but it seems to help.

If you only have a few tomatoes you can just put them all in a paper bag and set it in a darkish place.  You don't want to seal it completely but you do want to fold the bag closed or something to keep all those gases that ripen the tomato in.  Just check on your tomatoes every day or so to make sure they don't rot.

If you have lots of tomatoes you can wrap each one loosely in newspaper and set them all in a box or something and put that in a dark place.

Anyone have any luck with ripening tomatoes inside?  Any tips?  I'll let you know how my ripening experiment turns out next week!

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.