Delicious!

We go pretty easy around here for dinner on Christmas Day. This year I made a fabulous French Onion Soup. It started as this recipe from Alton Brown. Unable to leave well enough alone ( did you hear that Mom, I know....I know....) I made some changes and I must say it was fantastic!

Here is what I did. I used Alton's ( first names here, Alton and I are old friends...in an "I watch your show compulsively" sort of way.) method for sweating and then caramelizing the onions, but I used my trusty Le Crueset dutch oven instead of his newfangled electric skillet.

5 large sweet onions ( I used Spanish Yellow Sweets)
3 tbl butter


Trim the ends off each onion then halve lengthwise. Remove peel and finely slice into half moon shapes. Add butter to pan. Once butter has melted add a layer of onions and sprinkle with a little salt. Repeat layering onions and salt until all onions are in the skillet. Do not try stirring until onions have sweated down for 15 to 20 minutes. After that, stir occasionally until onions are dark mahogany and reduced to approximately 2 cups. This should take 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Add enough white wine to cover onions and reduce to approx 2 cups.

Here is where Alton and I part ways.

I added

64 fluid ounces Pacific Organics Mushroom Stock
64 fluid ounces Pacific Organics Vegetable Stock
10 ounces Unfiltered Apple Cider.
a generous splash of cognac.

no herbs ( I didn't have the ones he called for and I was not going to the store.)

I let it all cook for 30 minutes. Then turned it off and left it alone, reheating it for dinner about three hours later. I think that letting it sit really allowed the flavours to meld and the stock to take on that meatiness associated with French Onion Soup. No one eating this would guess that there is no beef stock in it at all.

We served this with a huge green salad. Gruyere croutons and these amazing morsels of bacon-ey heaven from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Bacon, grated cheese and club cracker ( hey, I did use the whole grain kind.....)

We had cookies and ice cream for dessert.

If you haven't checked out Ree at Confessions of A Pioneer Woman or at her cooking blog The Pioneer Woman Cooks Go on over and say "Hey" She has some great stories, incredible photos and some recipes that are not to believed!