First up is French onion soup. I use pretty much the procedure that the Cooks Illustrated people recommend. Take half a dozen onions (this should be a bit over 3 lbs, or 1.5 kg) and slice them fairly thinly. The Cooks people recommend red onions, and those certainly work well, but I've used all sorts (and mixtures of whatever's on hand). Now comes the only time-consuming part: cook these in a pot with butter (2 tablespoons, or about 30 grams) over medium-to-low heat, stirring frequently, until they're quite dark but not burnt. This will take at least half an hour, and probably more. If you're using a conventional pot (not nonstick), you'll have a lot of stuff stuck to the sides, so be careful that it doesn't burn. This is the key step in the whole preparation: well-browned onions are the crucial ingredient, without which all is lost.
Now add a mixture of beef broth (2 cups, 500 mL) and chicken broth (6 cups, 1500 mL). I sometimes have the latter around frozen from previous chicken preparations, otherwise, you can use canned. Beef broth I almost never have around, for one reason or another, so that's almost always canned. (Note - using all canned beef broth makes a fairly nasty soup, while using all chicken broth makes an edible, but rather chicken-centric one). This step will loosen up all the caramelized onion stuff and get things into suspension, if not into solution. You can also add a half cup or so (125 mL) of red wine at this point if you like. Season it all with dried thyme, salt, and pepper to taste, add a bay leaf, and simmer the mixture gently for at least fifteen minutes. (If it goes longer, you can add a bit of water to bring the volume back up). Check the taste at this point - you might like it with more of a bite, in which case a few mLs of balsamic vinegar added to the pot will help out.
You can have this as is, or go the traditional gratineé method, with toasted bread and cheese on top. I use whatever's on hand in the bread department, just making sure that it's cut fairly thick and is well toasted, and then add some sort of Swiss-ish cheese - your choice. (You can even go as far, and as non-traditional, as mild Provolone, but I don't think that sharp cheddar (for example) would be a very good idea). The best way to do all this is probably to put the soup in some sort of heat-resistant bowl, plop in the bread, cover that with cheese, and run the whole thing under a broiler.
This, to me, is one of the best meals for very cold weather - I can't imagine eating it in July. Next post: chicken pot pie.