One Saturday afternoon in January

Well today started very early because we had a big walk at school this morning. It was good fun though. Cyrus unfortunately was unable to join us due to his injury, but he did get to ride in the train. We all dressed in our blue and red to show our support.

When we got home I felt like something different for lunch so I made some onion soup. I looked at a few recipes and then went to see if I had the ingredients to do it. I didn't have cognac as one recipe called for and I only had an assortment of frozen white wines. What we do is if we don't drink a bottle soon after it had been opened we normally freeze what is left for cooking. In this particular glad bag I had about three different white wines. I normally just open a bag and top it up LOL

I thinly sliced 4 red onions and gently fried them in about 3 tbs of unsalted butter (French butter I might add) and 1 tbs of olive oil' To that I added 2 tbs of brown sugar and 1 tbs of sea salt mixed with herbs of Provence. ( Something we picked up in Marseilles). They caramelised beautifully over a low heat in about 30 minutes. To that I added about 1 1/2 cups of my frozen wine mixture, 1 cup of hot water with about 2tsp of Maggie Seasoning Liquid. It smelled like it was going to be really tasty. As all of the ingredients cooked gently I added to 1 pinch of wild thyme. I thought wow I am loving this.

To finish off I sliced up a brown baget, sprinkled it over with some grated, white cheddar and toasted it. The pictures don't do the soup justice because not only did it taste great it smelled divine as well.

After that I made my version of shortbread. While I was kneading the dough I thought of my friend Claire who make the best shortbread ever. She serves hers with strawberries and boy howdy it is mmm mmm mm good.

I wonder how mine will taste, it's cooling now. Ya know Andy better hurry back or he may lose his place as number one chef around here!!