Swiss Style Onion Tart

 

I was recently on a baking kick and was determined to find an onion tart recipe similar to the one my grandfather used to make. Though I ave not found a perfect match just yet, and I likely never will, this tart was delicious and very quickly devoured. The dough is a little finicky to work with, but that could also be my lack of experience with making pie and tart crusts. This tart filling is delicious and you could cheat and use store bought dough or a pie shell. I made this without bacon and I still love it. Feel free to use Gruyere cheese if you have it readily available, otherwise a Swiss cheese (like Emmental) will work as well.

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Caramelized Onion Tart

I was visiting my sister earlier this year and we decided to make this onion tart. Though caramelizing onions takes a while, the rest of the recipe looked easy enough. We made it simpler by using a store bough pie shell, but feel free to use the link to the original recipe for the homemade dough recipe. Once the onions are caramelized, this recipe comes together very quickly and easily. I ended up cooking this in stages and the end result was still delicious. We served this quiche with a big green salad and were absolutely stuffed. If you're a hungry group, this feeds about 3 people.

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Simple Chili con Carne

While I was visiting my sister this autumn, we made a giant batch of this chili. This is my sister's go-to recipe for chili and it was definitely a keeper. The ingredients are simple, the spicy factor can be turned way up or way down, and you really can't mess it up. Unfortunately my camera was on its last leg when I was making this chili, so half of the pictures are out of focus. Luckily my main chili picture is clear, otherwise this would be a pretty sad looking post.

I made a batch of cheese biscuits to serve along with this chili and they complemented each other perfectly. As with all Tex-Mex style food, you can top these with cheese, sour cream, cilantro, or anything you'd put on a plate of nachos (I am sure that comment has offended any true Tex-Mex cooks out there). I usually love adding a dollop of sour cream or a sprinkle of cheese to counteract the red pepper flakes in my chilis since I tend to use a generous amount.

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Yellow Split Pea Soup

Autumn has officially arrived. It's rainy and cold and all I want to to is curl up under a blanket. The other thing I love to do when the weather gets like this is have cooking sprees. On my days off I tend to hang around the kitchen trying out new recipes or remaking some of my favorites. I just had my second rainy day off in a row and decided it was time to make the first soup of the season. I initially wanted to make a traditional split pea soup, but could only find yellow peas. Then I decided to stick with making a healthy soup since I've been eating way too many unhealthy things over the past 2 days.

This soup is incredibly hearty. I served it as a main course for a family dinner night (which is what we call a night when all my roommates are home and we sit down to have dinner together) and everyone loved it, even the fussy eaters of the house. It's a really healthy soup since the only source of fat is the olive oil. If you can't find yellow split peas, this soup is also great with regular green split peas. I made some fresh rolls to go with the soup and found that it was the perfect dinner on a rainy day.

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Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

A couple months ago I made these tarts as an appetizer, but somehow completely forget to write the post. They tasted incredible and weren't too difficult to make. It combines so many great flavors from the goat cheese and sauteed onions to the tomatoes and basil. The only difficulty I had was with getting the edges of my puff pasty dough to rise. I was able to make 6 tarts instead of just 4 with the ingredients listed, so perhaps I stretched my dough a little thinner than intended. I also think these would make really great bite sized appetizers. Instead of rolling the dough into a 6 inch circle, I would consider rolling out 2 or 3 inch circles and using sliced cherry or Campari tomatoes  instead of larger ones.

The original recipe calls for a garlic and herb goat cheese, which I did not have at the time. To make up for this difference, I just chopped up some fresh herbs from the garden (mainly chives and thyme) and mixed them into the plain goat cheese. When you make this recipe, be sure to serve it fresh from the oven since it does not re-heat well. I had some left over and even though the flavors were still delicious, the dough did not get crunchy enough the second time around.

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French Onion Soup

Mmmm, onion soup. I could eat bowl after bowl of this stuff. With the dropping temperatures, soup season has officially started and I thought the best way to kick it off was by making a big bowl of French onion soup. It's one of those classic soups that I never get sick of, which is probably party due to the fact that there is delicious melted cheese on top. When this soup was made, three of us managed to finish off the pot, and we could have probably all gone for more (yes, it was that good). This soup tastes like it is made at a fancy French restaurant, but in reality all it takes are some basic ingredients.

I have to confess that when I first put these soups under the broiler, they were in pretty hideous ramekins (see photo below) and I could not imagine that being the final picture of this soup. While in the process of transferring the soup into a mug, the bread sort of drowned and the cheese was hidden under onions. So don't worry, yours will probably look like a real French onion soup, unlike mine. Also, for recipes like this, I usually use up any bottle of red wine that I have lying around.

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