French "Three Onion" Soup and Mock Caesar Salad

One of my favorite lunches is a classic soup and salad. I was watching Kelsey's Essentials on Cooking Channel the other day (if you've never seen it, her show is one of my favorites! She won "The Next Food Network Star" and now she has a show all about cooking basics), and she made a French onion soup that looked AMAZING. The only problem was the 2 sticks of butter that she used to caramelize the onions. I started looking for recipes for a healthier version of French onion soup, and I found this recipe on foodnetwork.com. What makes this one different from the unhealthy recipes? Steam. Instead of using butter to caramelize the onion, this recipe steams the onions in only 1 tbsp butter plus 1 tsp olive oil. Thats about 1/16 the amount of fat in a traditional recipe. Score! I also made a recipe my mom gave me for a "Mock Caesar Salad." All of the flavor with waaaay less fat. What could be better?

French Three Onion Soup

A couple of substitutions that I made: I used plain old green onions instead of leeks. No way was I paying 4 bucks for leeks. I also didn't buy fresh herbs, so I just used a couple of shakes of dried rosemary and thyme in a tea diffuser ball. You could also just put the dried herbs in the soup and it would be fine. One thing that I absolutely would not substitute: The gruyere cheese. I refuse to use low fat or fat free cheese. The more flavor it has, the less you need, and gruyere has a LOT of flavor.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds yellow onions, peeled, halved, and thinly sliced, (about 6 cups sliced)
• 6 shallots, thinly sliced, (1 3/4 cups)
• 1 leek, white and light green part thinly sliced, washed well, and dark green top reserved 
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 to 4 fresh thyme sprigs
• 1 fresh rosemary sprig
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 4 cups low-sodium beef broth
• 2 cups water
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup dry sherry
• 8 (1/4-inch thick) slices whole-wheat baguette (2 ounces), toasted
• 1/2 cup finely grated Gruyere (about 1 3/4 ounces) 
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

1. Heat the butter and oil together in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions, shallots and leek, and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir to combine and cover. Cook, without stirring until the onions are soft and beginning to brown, about 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Uncover, and continue to cook, stirring often, until the onions are a rich brown color and well caramelized, about 25 to 30 minutes. (If the onions begin to stick to the bottom of the pan or burn add about a 1 tablespoon water at a time.) Meanwhile, tie the reserved leek top with the thyme and rosemary using a piece of kitchen twine.

3. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and cook, stirring, to cook out the raw flour taste, about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the broth and 2 cups water, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the pan; add the herb bundle. Reduce the heat and simmer until thickened, 20 to 25 minutes. Stir in the Worcestershire and remove from the heat. Discard the herb bundle, stir in the sherry and season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

4. Preheat the broiler. Divide the soup between 4 (16-ounce) oven proof bowls or ramekins and arrange them on a baking sheet. Top each bowl evenly with 2 baguette slices and top with the cheese. Put under the broiler until the cheese is melted and lightly browned, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with the chives and serve. (I didn't add the chives...they're more for garnish anyway)

Taste Rating: 9

This was actually REALLY good. There was so much flavor: onion, shallot, rosemary, thyme, gruyere...amazing. You would never know that it had so little fat

Easy Rating: 3 

This recipe took a really long time...like way over an hour. And you have to be paying attention for a good portion of that. When I make this again, it will definitely be on a day when I have nothing better to do. 

Overall Rating: 7

This was SO DELICIOUS, but it was really way too much work for my liking. 

Mock Caesar Salad

Ingredients:

1/3 cup fat-free plain yogurt

¼ cup low fat mayo

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

¼ tsp. garlic powder

1/8 tsp. pepper

6 cups torn romaine

½ c. fat-free salad croutons (I didn't have any, so I just left these out)

2 tbl. Shredded parmesan

In a small bowl, whisk together the first seven ingredients.  In a salad bowl, combine the romaine, croutons and cheese.  Drizzle with dressing; toss to coat.

Taste Rating: 9

You'll learn VERY quickly that I despise bottled salad dressing. I don't care how expensive or tasty it is, NOTHING beats a dressing made from scratch. 

Easy Rating: 9

Obviously, making your own dressing takes more effort than pouring it straight from a bottle. But still, 2 minutes of mixing stuff in a bowl? Not difficult at all, and TOTALLY worth the extra time.

Overall Rating: 9