What to do with a giant bag of onions?
A really big bag of onions
Locally if I buy a pound of onions it will cost me about $2.49 (Canadian) or if I head over to Fruiticana I can get a 50lb bag for $17.99. It is really not a difficult decision for me :
Do I pay $0.36/lb or $2.49/lb?
Why would I want to pay 8x more??
So the question comes up. What on earth do I do with that many onions?
My wife loves French Onion soup
Actually, I love french onion soup as well. However, I'm trying to avoid meat products where possible and French Onion soup uses Beef boullion. It also uses cheese (and I'm on a diet) along with bread (did I mention a diet?).
Now my son and I had a discussion today. His thought was to make what you enjoy and enjoy a variety of foods to make sure you get proper nutrition. I told him I'm trying to work backwards. Find out what foods give you the nutrition you need and work backwards to make meals that incorporate those ingredients so I am certain I get the nutrients I need.
Doing that I decided to make some biscuits with apple and sunflower seeds (not shown here because I already posted baking powder biscuits in a previous post) and an onion soup that doesn't use non-vegan sources.
To ensure I get all the nutrients I need this onion soup will be a little different.
Ingredient list
- 3 large onions
- 2 tbsp Canola Oil
- 40g of dried soy beans
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 Bell Pepper
- 1/2tbsp Cumin
- 1/2tbsp Italian Seasoning
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1/2tbsp garlic powder
- 1/8tsp of pepper
List of steps in the process
How I actually did it is written below but basically:
- Cook the soybeans
- Blend in with spices, carrot, and bell pepper
- Cut, saute, then caramelize the onions
- Let it all sit together to blend the flavours
I'm not following a recipe and I've never caramelized onions before.
Now before I begin I'm looking at nutrition and cost. I'm a terrible cook and I'm not following a recipe. Then again, I'm curious what I end up with.
How I made my soup
I started with some dried soy beans. I didn't want to add too much because they are there for protein and to add a little heartiness to the soup without making it too thick.
40 grams of dried soy beans ($.11)
Cover and cook in crock pot for 4+ hours on high
Of course dried beans take a long time to cook. So, I added them into a crock pot in the morning and left them to cook on high for the rest of the morning. I think I got back to them around 2pm which means they were cooking for about 5 hours on high.
When I got back to cooking I got the rest of the vegetables and spices ready.
Spices and veggies to flavour the soup base
- 1 carrot ($0.20)
- 1/2 bell pepper ($0.50)
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tbsp of italian seasoning
- 1/2 tbsp of garlic powder
- 1/2 tbsp of cumin
- 1 tsp of salt
- 2 bay leaves
But again this isn't a vegetable soup its an onion soup. These are just here for nutrition and to add a nice base for the onions. I'm not chopping into bits I want them as a puree so they are tasted but not felt or seen.
Throw it all in the blender
So, into the blender they all go. I did add the soybeans and the liquid the soy beans were cooking in. It is very hot so when I blend I keep the speed down. I don't want to spray hot liquid anywhere!
Blend into a soup base
Medium speed for a minute and a half made things pretty homogenous. With everything all mixed up it goes back into the crock pot to let the flavours meld together.
As a side note the bay leaves Do Not get put into the blender. They get added whole and get removed before eating the soup. I made the mistake of grinding up bay leaf before in soup...It's a mistake I only make once (yuck)
Back into the crock pot to let the tastes join. Don't forget the Bay Leaves
A couple hours later (it's 4pm now). I decide its time to get the onions read. Now I've never caramelized onions before. A quick online search says I start with a 5 minute sautee of the onion. Then I continue cooking on low heat for the next 45 minutes. Let's see how that goes.
I start with adding some oil to the frying pan and put on medium heat to preheat the pan.
Preheat the frying pan with some oil. I used Canola Oil
- Canola oil 2tbsp ($0.20)
While the pan is warming up I get to work peeling the onions and chopping them up into uniform slices.
Peel then slice 3 large onions
- Onions $0.30
I always want to get this done as quickly as possible as I hate the effect onions have on my eyes. When the onions are all chopped up ready to add to the frying pan.
High heat to saute the onions for 5 minutes
It has been said that when men use the oven they only know two settings: Off and Scorch! Well, I only use maximum heat for boiling water. However, to saute the onions I move the temperature up to fairly high and give it a bit of time then add the onions.
Make sure they don't burn by stirring them regularly. Also split into rings do they can cook more evenly.
I read I should spit the onion into rings before I begin to saute. Nah, I hate touching raw onions so I break them up while I'm mixing them around under high heat. Keep them moving and keep them from burning. After 5 minutes they start to get softer and a bit translucent. I'm hoping that's the time I lower the heat.
Low heat to caramelize the onions. 45min at low heat.
So, I lower the heat. Get a video ready and watch TV while I'm gently stirring the onions for the next 45 minutes. Do I really have to be there for this step? I don't know but I don't want things to burn so I just take this as a 45 minute break in my day to relax and watch anime (Komi can't communicate). Sure its kind of childish to watch anime but I need something to occupy my time while I'm stirring onions.
Keep them moving so they don't burn.
After a while they start to turn brown (I'm pretty sure that's what I'm looking for) and they are very soft.
Horray. I made caramelized onions for the first time.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with myself. Hopefully they taste good also. However, they need time to sit in their soup base before I can find out. So, into the crock pot for another few hours. Again to give the flavors a chance to meld together.
Into the soup base to fill out the flavour. Now I got busy walking the dog, doing some research on vitamins and playing Diablo IV. At 9:30pm ... 12 hours after I started I give the soup a stir and it actually looks better than I was hoping for.
Ready to serve
So I dish myself out a bowl of onion soup for a late night snack.
First impression: Wow....it was a lot sweeter than I expected. It was good, but it was sweet. I had to add more salt to balance things out a bit. Overall though it has the nutrition I was looking for, a flavour I can enjoy and at an overall cost of about $1.30 for the whole pot it was cheap enough that I don't feel bad about that either.
Took all day but now its ready to eat!
Final Note
I know most people in this group are better cooks than I am. I know simple things like cooking onions or making soup are probably beneath your notice. However, I'm trying to document how I'm learning and maybe some newbie can a tip or two from my mistakes.
And if you are an established cook maybe you can drop me a line on what I should do differently for next time!
Thanks for reading....
.... Until my next food experiment.