french onion soup and a salad for all seasons

last thursday was soup and salad night. the soup was french onion, about which i promised to report since i was making it with my first batch of homemade beef stock. i'm happy to say it was wonderful! i followed this recipe from gourmet, december 2006, cooking the onions for about an hour and 15 minutes until they were amber colored and super creamy. topped with a cave-aged gruyere (oh my gawd, we love cave-aged gruyere so desperately!) and left off the parmesan, but only because i forgot about it... 


i admit i was a little nervous about this soup since it's success, best i can tell, depends on a well-flavored stock. thankfully, the flavor was there! it also felt good to know i was taking in all those minerals coaxed out of healthy, grass-fed bones. just got more bones from skagit river ranch-- 2 lbs for 3 bucks will make over $20 worth of stock!

now to the salad. it was another PCC natural markets recipe, warm roasted root vegetable salad with hazelnuts, chevre, and aged balsamic. the recipe calls for carrot, parsnip, turnip, beet, and yam on salad greens. i used carrot, parsnip, butternut squash, asian pear, and baby shallots on winter spinach. the pear was an experiment, but it roasted right up and caramelized like a champion. 

it wasn't until we were in the middle of dinner that i realized this salad was the wintry doppelganger to my grilled summer vegetable salad with goat cheese crostini! what can i say-- i like what i like! i'm already thinking of a spring version-- asparagus, radish and green onion, anyone?


recipes again:
french onion soup, gourmet dec. 2006 
warm roasted root vegetable salad with hazelnuts, chevre, and aged balsamic