Dens Sapientiae

Oh, you guys, all of these years, I have wondered what the hell could be so bad about having one's wisdom teeth out that causes women who have experienced births of multiple children (hi, Mom!) to blanch in horror. Well, this week? I got schooled, specifically in the extent of my wimpiness, and believe me, it is both extensive and awesome. It inspires awe, my wimpiness. Seriously, this is Post-Op Day 8 and I was in so much pain last night that I spent a couple of hours clutching a heat pack to my face before just giving in and taking my second to last vicodin and heading to bed.

Conveniently, however, I now have a metric shit ton of recipes for soft yet delicious foods. Hooray! The biggest hit of the past week was hands down the french onion soup I made after my mom went back home.* My godmother moved to the Lake Tahoe area when I was a baby and spent years working in and around the vacation industry. At some point, she came across the recipe for the french onion soup at Captain Jon's restaurant in Lake Tahoe. I have no idea when in the last thirty years this was; the soup doesn't even appear on the restaurant's current online menu. I also have no idea how much my aunt, who is an amazing cook, may have tweaked the recipe over the years. However it was developed, she gave a copy of the recipe to Mark and me for our wedding, along with these ridiculously adorable Le Creuset individual casseroles.

Super cute, right? Believe me, they would be a million times better filled with this soup and melty, pungent swiss cheese. Heaven in a bowl. The recipe is a little time consuming with the onion caramelizing, but it's so worth it, because the longer the onions have to brown and become soft and sweet and amazing, the better the end result will be. Here's what you do:

1.)  Chop onions FOREVER, while your eyes buuuurn and water, and your husband laughs so hard at your weeping that he can barely take the photos you have so kindly requested.  By this, I mean slice 4 sweet onions into thinnish half-moons.

2.)  Melt a stick (an ENTIRE STICK) of unsalted butter and add in 3 cloves of finely chopped garlic. Or, if you're lazy like I am, 3 cubes of Dorot frozen garlic puree--just as good!
3.)  Once the butter is nice and sizzly and the garlic is fragrant (HAAA, why am I talking like a tv chef?), add in the many, many onions while your eyes water anew. Blindly stir the onions to coat everything in the garlicky butter. I also may have added some thyme. Mmmm.

4.)  You want to keep the onions on a heat high enough to slowly cook them, but low enough that they develop a slow golden brown. Stir every so often for a loooong time. Think 30 minutes or more.
5.)  Once the onions look so good you consider scrapping the soup and just cramming them directly into your face, you're ready to add the rest of the ingredients. You'll need 1 1/2 tsps of Worcestershire (WUSS-ter-sheer),**

 1 1/2 tsps of dijon mustard, 2 tbsps of brandy,

and 1/2 c of sherry (I used the cheap cooking stuff and it was fine).

6.)  Stir in all of that delicious flavor,

then add in four 14 oz. cans of Swanson's beef broth (the recipe calls for Swanson's, but I would imagine 56-60 oz of whatever beef stock you have would be just fine).
7.)  Lastly, chop a small handful of fresh dill and toss it in.

Let everything simmer together for about a half hour, tasting for seasoning and adjusting salt and pepper as necessary.

 *****

Aaaand here is where I am a dramatic failure when it comes to food blogging. It was getting LATE at this point, and we were starving after nearly an hour and a half of seriously tantalizing smells. Not only did we not bother with the broiling of cheese onto garlicky croutons, we just dumped handfuls of cheese into bowls of soup and stuffed it into our faces. We didn't even use the adorable little casseroles--just regular old kitchen bowls. And obviously we didn't give a second thought to pictures until we were cleaning up after dinner. (This was only two days after the wisdom teeth removal, so there may have been some vicodin involved. Just saying.)

*****

8.)  Mind you, this last bit is theoretical, seeing as I was too impatient to bother with it myself. However, my aunt writes that you should slice a baguette and toast the slices, rubbing the toast with garlic. Ladle the soup into oven safe bowls, and float a crouton on top. Sprinkle a tiny bit of baking soda on the crouton (it makes the cheese bubble up) and cover the bowl completely with shredded gruyere. Stick the bowls on a cookie sheet and broil until the cheese is golden and bubbly. Just before serving, slip an additional teaspoon of brandy into each bowl.

It is INSANELY GOOD. In fact, you should probably run out and pick up the ingredients so that you can make it immediately. Enjoy!

*How awesome is my mom? She actually flew down from Boston to take care of me. We had one fun dinner out with my sister and her husband, then mom basically spent the rest of the week cooking soup, mac & cheese, and various other soft and tasty things--recipes to follow!
**I went to college in Worcester, MA, which most people--including my father, a lifelong Massachusetts resident--pronounce every way EXCEPT the correct way. It is not WOO-ster, WORE-ches-ter, WORE-cess-ter, or WISS-tah (ahem, Dad).