EVERY time my father goes to make a special soup (i.e. pea soup, lobster bisque, french onion) the hunt begins. Not for any obscure ingredient or cooking utensil, but the recipe. Oddly, each and every time my dad swears that it is on yellow paper and he “just saw it a few days ago.” Riiiighhhht, it would be easier to just go to a cookbook or computer and print out a new recipe, but nooooo. That would be a culinary sin of sorts. According to him, his recipe is different and better and “he just saw it.” After about 10 minutes of my father tearing up the kitchen, my mother reluctantly joins in. Two minutes later, the folded, wrinkled, stained recipe is found and the cooking commences. Needless to say this gets old pretty damn fast.
I could have just put all of the handwritten recipes in a binder or folder, but that wouldn’t be fun and wouldn’t be an obvious place to look. So I found TasteBook, a service that allows you to design your own cookbook. It was like the clouds parted and the choirs started to sing, I found a solution to our annoying recurring issue. I hastily ran to the kitchen, well I walked swiftly, and gathered up any old crappy piece of paper that resembled a recipe. About an hour later I had finished my masterpiece, a cookbook with all of our favorite recipes on nice clean pages in a colorful binder. All in all, the cookbooks cost $19.95 each, but it was sooooo worth it.
Gone are the countless hours looking for wrinkly recipes, the tornado that was my father looking around and now our favorites recipes are just at our fingertips. Is $19.95 kinda pricey for a cookbook, yup, but everytime my father gets an idea to cook, I just realize that I bought back 15 minutes of our lives.
As a thank you for reading, here is our recipe for French Onion Soup….just don’t print it out on yellow paper!
3 Tbs butter (plus a little more)
3 large onions-thinly sliced
1Tbs flour
½ Tsp salt
Ground black pepper
5 c beef broth
4 slices French bread
4 Tbs grated Parmesan cheese
4 Tbs grated Swiss cheese
In a heavy pan melt the butter, add the sliced onions and cook slowly (stirring occasionally) until golden.
Sprinkle in the flour and stir for a few minutes.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add the broth, stirring constantly.
Bring to a boil, lower heat and let simmer partially covered, for 30 minutes.
Toast the bread in oven until brown.
Place in oven proof bowls.
Preheat broiler.
Sprinkle the breat with Parmesan cheese.
Pour soup over the bread and top with Swiss cheese.
Brown cheese under broiler and serve immediately.
