Soup for the Sick

9.2.13 Note - Due to mishaps in the blogosphere many pictures were deleted from this blog.  I've done my best to add them back in but, unfortunately, the ones for this post pre-date my laptop.  Please imagine everything to be perfectly mouthwatering - Jessie

We were off to a strong start, weren't we? And then a week of no posts at all... Well, Sunday was the Superbowl; not a lot of mystique in hot dogs and Doritos (although I may have to share some potato salad goodness at some point), and since then I've been getting/having a bad head cold. I don't cook much when I'm sick because I don't eat much when I'm sick. Also, I use my sense of smell an awful lot when I'm cooking, and when that's screwed up I might as well do everything with my eyes closed. It would all come out the same amount of crappy.

So what's the most comforting thing to have when you're sick? Soup! Luckily I've had some on hand. I made some delectable French Onion soup last week and just finished it up yesterday. It was like a warm, silky blanket of love on my cold, itchy throat.

I don't have a recipe for this one since I just make it by feel but I can show-and-tell... I like to use different kinds of onion for more depth of flavor. I don't know what it is, but lately, for the past six months or so, I've seen a boom in the population of sweet onions in my local grocery stores. So I used some Mayan Sweets, some regular white onions and a big shallot along with some fresh thyme:

I like some good-sized pieces of onion in my soup so I did a pretty rough chop on the sweets, finer on the whites which are smaller and then thin slices of shallot. Thyme is a pain in the ass if you want the actual bits of herb in the soup; you have to scale the leaves off of the stem. When I have it kitchen twine or cheesecloth on-hand I put my thyme and dried bay leaf into a bouquet garni but no such luck this time. So I peeled off the tiny little leaves for my soup.

I sweated the onions in some butter and olive oil for awhile until the delectableness and intensity of the aroma was virtually unbearable. I could have smeared it on bread and been done with it, but I was hell-bent on soup. Typically French Onion soup has beef stock and broth and red wine, but I was in the mood for something lighter so I chose a rosé.

This is a 2008 Mulderbosch rosé of cab; very fruity and slightly floral which plays well off the sweet onion, fresh thyme and dried bay leaf. To keep the lightness I finished it with Swanson beef and chicken broth with a ratio of 2:1. It simmered for a good hour before gracing a heavy bowl laden with Gruyere cheese and a crusty crouton made of Grand Central Bakery's Como bread from Metropolitan Market; my south sound substitute for Whole Foods when I'm feeling uppity.
I wish I had more pictures but my camera died pretty early in the process. Needless to say it was delicious and soupy and worth the smell of onions lingering in the kitchen for days after. I wish I had some right now, but will have to settle for other leftovers. Lasagna anyone?