Recipe: Hot Onion Souffle

Happy New Year's everyone!! I have emerged from my Holiday cocoon rested and relaxed and maybe even ready to tackle this new year. We put our time off to good use. We hosted my folks, cleaned out the house, cooked with abandon and actually beat the now "old-timey" game Legend of Zelda on our Wii. Okay, DH beat Legend of Zelda and Thing 1 and I contributed in small ways and by cheering. But all of us, including Thing 2, enjoyed watching it go down.

But wait...in my last post over two weeks ago I promised THE PERFECT holiday dip! And I never followed up with a recipe! Oh the injustice. I suppose that I am exactly what I always have promised I would be-inconsistent at best. But...we did host a fantastic New Year's Eve party and I do make this dip whenever we are getting together with people that we want to impress so I thought it would be wrong of me not to share the recipe with you.

I always get lots of oohs and aahs when I serve this dish. But it is rich and I have decided that high fat diet or no high fat diet, this dip is not good for you. It is doing you no favors on the waistline or anywhere else for that matter. Don't try and kid yourself that this dip is high in whatever vitamin or antioxidant that onions posses. This dip is purely for pleasure.

I got this recipe from my sister in law. But I am fairly certain that she got it from some southern Junior League cookbook. But in just one google search I found a few claiming the recipe as their own. I add that just so you know I am not trying to selfishly claim this as my own. I did not invent this mash of amazingness.

Hot Onion Souffle

2 Packages cream cheese (I love Organic Valley's), at or near room temperature
1/2 cup mayo
1 large sweet onion, finely minced
1 cup shredded Parmesan

Mix ingredients.

Spread in a dish.

Bake at 350 degrees until the top begins to brown at the edges. Do not over bake or the dip will begin to separate and get oily. I have done that, not good. Serve with crackers or if you dare, Fritos.



This is so good that it might actually be worth the extra pant size. Happy New Year people! I am happy to be back in the blogging saddle. I look forward to a new year full of new posts!!

Enjoy!!

My Adventures in Lard: Onion Pie

No Doubt I will lose some readers over the whole lard thing. I mean, this is a borderline taboo subject for us in the US. But I am game. After doing my own research on my minimally processed lard I have realized that it is not the demon fat that everyone makes it out to be. However, I have heard it does taste kind of porky. I chose not to render my own just to save $3. I went to the Flying Pigs in Union Square Green Market. Their stall is definitely there on Fridays. I have been unable to find it any other day of the week, but that might be me, not them. Flying Pigs charges $6 for an 8 ounce container of beautifully rendered leaf lard. Leaf lard is the cleanest, smoothest and least 'porky' of lards. This no bacon grease!

I wanted to use my lard to make a pie crust. But I was hesitant to make a sweet pie, because Lord, what if that lard tasted like pork chops? I didn't want to sink my teeth into a cherry pork flavored pastry. So I settled on a savory application. And when I saw Onion Pie on Agrigril's blog, I knew that was my pork fat method of delivery.

I made the pie crust one evening when the kids got homemade mac and cheese because well, I hadn't made this pie crust at 5am that morning to have it ready to go, so the kids get a 10 minutes dinner. I made my ole' standby pie recipe, 1 1/3 cups of half white flour, 4 ounces of lard (I have been using butter for the past several years), a pinch of salt and 5-6 tablespoons of ice cold water. As you probably know already, mix the lard in with the flour until it resembles a coarse crumb. Then make a well in the center. Add the 5-6 tablespoons of ice cold water and mix the dough all together. The form a ball and then roll out into a circle shaped pie crust with a rolling pin. So many people told me that crusts made of lard were more flaky and tender. But they weren't kidding. This was my first time working with lard, so here is what I experienced. I had had the fat frozen and thawed in the refrigerator. Although the fat had been stored in the fridge for the last couple of days it came up to room temperature very quickly and my hands melted the fat quite easily. It did smell a little like there was a pork roast roasting down the hall. Nothing overwhelming, actually it was good. the crumb was very soft, whereas every time I use butter I still find little hard cold bits when I mix the flour and the butter. Because the dough was so soft I had to use less water, 5 tablespoons only whereas I have used as many as 7 with a butter crust. (Using so much water always made my mother start. Pie crusts were a big family trade in my house growing up, and my mother believe in less water for sure. But she used shortening, who knew back then?)

The lard melted very readily on my hands, but not like shortening does, if you have memories of that growing up. It seems like it took half the bottle of soap to wash shortening off my hands. Not this. The lard melted in a thin, kind of slippery layer on my hands. Washing it off was ridiculously easy. I feel like this has to be related to its goodness as a healthy unprocessed fat (OMG, did she just say that?).

The dough was so soft that I put it back in the fridge to cool down. I rolled it out after Thing 2 went to bed. Thing 1 stayed up to help. I rolled it out and put it (very gently) into my pie plate. I mixed up 5 eggs with some whole milk and heavy cream. I added salt and pepper to taste and about a cup of grated Gruyere cheese. Too bad that I didn't read the whole recipe about cooking the onions and the pie shell first. I tend to get excited about things and blow through the fine print. I just chopped the onions and placed them raw into the unbaked pie shell the same way I would do when I make a spinach and leek quiche. Anyway. I put the onions into the pie shell and poured the mix of egg and cream and cheese over the top. Then I baked that sucker for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. For all my mistakes (honest mistakes I promise), the pie came out amazingly.

And Don't forget to check out Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays! I love to see what real food her readers are cooking.

CSA Dinner: Salmon with Fennel and Onion in Cream

This is not a hilarious dinner, it actually came out so well that DH was raving as we ended dinner! The kids did not repeat their previous performance with the salmon, but they ate enough they won't wake up early from hunger, thank God! Please try this recipe, it is amazing. It is also "weeknight easy" and the only fennel recipe that I haven't screwed up in my whole life.

I also implore you to embrace fat-real fat like from cream and olive oil and salmon and avacados. It holds an important place in our diets. As I have cut out Pringles and muffins and Town House crackers, etc I am finding that I have room in my diet for delicious things like cream and butter without consuming so much fat that I gain weight.....oh how wonderful that is.

Salmon with Fennel and Onion in Cream

In a saute pan with a lid, placed 1 chopped onion and 1 bulb of chopped fennel, spread evenly around the pan. Sprinkle 5-6 fresh basil leaves on the veggies. Pour cream over the top, enough so that the veggies look like they are well taken care of, but not drowning in cream. Place a 1 pound filet of wild salmon (FYI-the farmed ones all eat corn feed) on top of the veggies and cream. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the lid on and bake in a 400 degree oven for 30-40 minutes or whenever the fennel is done. Serve over brown rice and do not waste one drop of cream. Get out a spoon if you must.