What are you Cooking the Week of February 14, 2021?

[Italiancook]

I made caramelized onions for the second time. I used a recipe I found the first time on Food Network's site. It is no longer there, and I can't understand why. It's a good, easy-to-remember process. But it does take a lot of onions to make a little finished product. I sliced 1-1/2 pounds onions and ended up with enough caramelized onions for two. I froze half and used half on top of an oven-baked potato with sour cream & canned salmon patties. I counted the onions as the vegetable.

It's a chore to slice the onions. I wonder if the slicing disc of the food processor could be used. I think I'd have to be careful how I placed the onions. Next time, I'm going to try it if I have time to experiment.

[Mike Nolan]

Peeling the outer layer off the onions seems to take the longest for me. The old Veg-a-matic did a great job slicing onions, as I recall. (The newer versions of that tool, if you can even find them, don't seem as sturdy.)

When I made my onion soup I used a 10 pound bag of onions and that didn't quite fill a 12 quart stock pot. After 5 hours in the oven, it was down to only 2 or 3 inches deep.

I'm told you can freeze them after they've been caramelized and throw them into something you're making, often without even thawing them. I may have to try that. I wonder if they'd smell up your freezer, perhaps not if you double-bagged them?

[Mike Nolan]

Recently I went looking for the Danish Kringle recipe on the Food Network site and couldn't find it in any of their lists, but their search tool still brought it up. I think they may have removed some recipes from the current indexes. Pity.

[BakerAunt]

Maybe Rottiedogs can find the recipe in the Wayback machine?

[chocomouse]

We had tuna sandwiches and soup tonight -- split pea for my husband and mushroom for me. Perfect on this cold night as we look forward to another (small) snowstorm to arrive by morning.

[Mike Nolan]

There's a 'caramelized onions' recipe that comes up if you do a search on the FN site, but I don't know if it the one she had found before. It's kinda short.

[Italiancook]

Mike, did I make too much work for myself with my caramelized onions? You're right, removing the skins from the onions is time-consuming. But I found working with the onions to be the most time-consuming:

I cut each onion in half. Then, I separated the "rings" in each onion slice. Now, I wonder if I needed to do the separating. Do you? Or, do the half-rings separate themselves naturally during the cooking and stirring process?

I had searched FN, because I wanted to print and send the recipe to someone. I found their short recipe that uses sugar. In the one I follow, there's no sugar; it requires longer cooking time. Now, I think maybe I didn't find a recipe. Maybe it was an article from their magazine. Thanks for searching for it, though.

[Mike Nolan]

I cut both ends off (some experts recommend not cutting off the root end, but I think that makes peeling the outer skin layers off harder), then cut the onion in half (pole to pole), then cut into slices to get half-rings. If the onions are really big, some of the ones in the bag I bought at Costco were over a pound, I'll cut about 2/3 of the way through each half so that I get quarter-rings for the outer layers, otherwise they're just too long.

I just dump them in the stock pot, stirring them during cooking every hour or so separates them. If you throw a little oil or butter in, they'll caramelize faster. Some people recommend throwing in a little sugar as well, I've never tried that.

[cwcdesign]

Italiancook - do you have a crockpot? The easiest recipe I ever found for making a large quantity of caramelized onions is from Lora Brody's Slow Cooker Cooking. She uses a 4 quart slow cooker but you can double the amount of onions (but don't need to double the butter) if you have a larger slow cooker. 3 pounds Vidalia or other sweet onions (about 4 or 5) peeled and sliced 1/8-1/4inch and 1 stick butter. Put onions and butter in pot and cook on low 12-14 hours. They should be mahogany colored and very soft - she says it's almost impossible to overcook them.

She also has a comment about the butter - not to worry about the amount. you can drain and chill the onions and the liquid. Skim the butter off the liquid and you can use the butter and liquid separately in other recipes. And, yes, you can freeze the onions.

I've used these onions in her onion soup and in other recipes.

[navlys]

I bought some flank steak on sale...actually 3 steaks before I realized that I don't like flank steak. No matter if I marinated it or pounded it or cut diamond slits in it the steak was still tough. Finally I found a recipe for slow cooking it. Mongolian beef is the name of the recipe. It wasn't tough but then I wondered if I really got a bargain when cheaper chuck steak would have fit the bill.

[Mike Nolan]

Flank is a tricky cut, low and slow, then thinly sliced against the grain is the usual advice. An acetic marinade can help, too.

I find it is generally overpriced compared to a lot of good cuts, like bottom round or rump.

[BakerAunt]

We had planned on Friday to have pan-cooked pork, a meal to which I look forward, as my husband cooks it, but we realized that the pork had not thawed. I pulled out a can of salmon and made salmon patties instead. I also tossed russet potatoes in olive oil and Penzey’s Mural seasoning and roasted at 400F for an hour. We had fresh microwaved broccoli as well.

[RiversideLen]

I roasted a fresh salmon fillet, baked sweet potato and broccoli.

BakerAunt, it looks like our menus are similar. I bought pork chops for tomorrow and the next couple of days.

[Joan Simpson]

We had garlic Greek shrimp,baked potatoes and salad.

[BakerAunt]

Len--not only did we both have salmon tonight and have pork for upcoming meals, but I'm planning on roasting sweet potatoes to go with the pork!

[Author]

Posts