Freeze it like you mean it

Sundays are my days to clean the house, sit around, and cook. I didn't clean today but I did get some excellent cooking in. I need to start the week strongly since last week I had a couple days where no CSA goods were used. For those of you keeping track, from last week's CSA I have collard greens, 1 zucchini , 1 yellow squash left, and a handful of green beans. This week we got LOTS of corn (like 8 ears), a few more zucchini and yellow squash, 2 small red onions, 2 small to medium sweet onions, and a bag of green beans.

This week at the farmer's market we got 6 sweet onions. We like sweet onions, okay?! Plus I forgot we would get some in our CSA this week, so we're overloaded with onions. What does that mean? It's French Onion soup time! We are also overloaded on zucchini and yellow squash and that means zucchini muffin time!

I use Tyler's Ultimate French Onion soup recipe from food network. I like it because it uses a half of a bottle of red wine...which means I drink the other half while I make the soup.

French Onion Soup

1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 bay leaves
2 fresh thyme sprigs
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup red wine, about 1/2 bottle
3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 quarts beef broth
provolone cheese-optional
garlic bread-optional

I put half of the onions in a dutch oven and the other half in my biggest skillet. I halve the butter between the two and start the caramelization process. It simply takes too long to get the onions going in just my dutch oven. The key to french onion soup is...duh...the onions. It takes time to caramelize onions so take the time. Start them over medium heat and reduce the heat if the onions start to get dark brown spots on them. You want your onions to be uniformly deep golden brown. When you get to the medium golden brown stage you can combine your onions in the dutch oven and add the garlic, bay leaf, and thyme. After deep golden brown has been achieved, add the wine and simmer until the onions are almost dry. Sprinkle in the flour and reduce heat to low and cook, stirring often for 10 minutes. Add the beef stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. To serve traditionally, top with a piece of garlic bread and top that with a slice of provolone cheese and place under the broiler until cheese is melty.

The real test here is cutting the onions. 4 farm-fresh onions. That will make even Mr. T cry...although Mr. T was kinda a cry baby, so I guess that isn't terribly hard. Maybe I should say it would make Hillary Clinton cry. Now THAT'S some strong onions! I chop onions with the vent fan on high and sunglasses on. It works for me and I look super cool.

This soup freezes beautifully. I usually keep a couple servings for lunches and the rest goes in the freezer.

Zucchini Muffins or Bread

3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 t vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups zucchini, shredded
1 tsp soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Beat together eggs, butter, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Stir in zucchini. In a separate bowl stir together flour, soda, salt and powder. Combine slowly until all ingredients are Incorporated. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Distribute mixture into 15 regular sized muffins and bake for 20 minutes.

15 muffins?! How annoying can you be?? So I have to wash an ENTIRE other muffin tin because you couldn't reduce this mixture down so it'd only make 12 muffins?! Ugh.

The Results: The soup is delicious. Savory, warm, inviting...something I'd like to eat on a crisp fall day. Except that it's like 90 out and mid-July. Well, it's a good thing I have a freezer! Actually the soup is just plain good, but I know it's going to be even better in late October. The muffins are really good. The perfect breakfast food year around. I froze 10 of them and left the other 5 out for breakfasts and snacks this week. I'll let you know how they unfreeze.

I used 3 zucchini (only 1 little zucchini left and 2 yellow squash) for the muffins and 6 onions for the soup (some of my onions were little).