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?

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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:

1. Cook the soybeans
2. Blend in with spices, carrot, and bell pepper
3. Cut, saute, then caramelize the onions
4. 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.

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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.