Onion soup

My mom made onion soup.  She opened a package of Lipton's dried onion soup mix, and added the prescribed amount of water, and we had onion soup.  I'm not talking about that kind of onion soup.  I'm talking about the hearty onion soup that sticks to your innards, the kind they make at Panera's.   I told my husband that I was going to go over there today and get us some, but I changed my mind.

I have a really good recipe for onion soup from scratch which isn't too difficult to make.  This particular recipe serves 8 if you use onion soup ramekins, or 4-6 if you use the soup bowls that come with your dish sets.  Since we like the onion soup, I use the soup bowls, not the ramekins.

Ingredients:

4 large onions, peeled, and sliced into rings
1/2 stick of butter
1/4 C flour
4 bullion cubes
1 tablespoon Worstershire Sauce
6 cups water
Your favorite topping cheese (provolone, swiss, mozzerella, parmasan)
Italian or French bread slices

In a large, deep pan, melt the butter, add the onions and let them cook until they are transluscent.  At this point sprinkle the flour over the onion/butter mixture and stir.  Slowly add the water, stirring as you're pouring.  After the onions, flour, and butter stuff is stirred into the water, add the Worstershire sauce and the 4 bullion (beef) cubes.  Stir until the bullion is dissolved.  Turn down the heat to low and let simmer for about one hour with the lid on the pot.

Taste it before you serve it.  It might need some salt, but I haven't found that to be the case.

I've also made it using beef broth -- 6 cups.  Four large onions seems like a lot of onions, but they boil down.

Serve the soup in a bowl with a piece of Italian or French bread in the bottom.  Put some kind of cheese on the top of the bowl -- we like parmasan, but mozzerella, sliced very thin, and provolone work well. 

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