After reading the recipe for Soul-Warming French Onion Soup on Brandon Eats I decided to give it a whirl. The results were both soul-warming and tastydelicious.

Since everything Brandon ever makes requires the use of a dutch oven — I hear her ancestors actually sailed over from Dutch in a large cast iron skillet — I decided to go pick one up at Target. Twenty-six dollars, a seriously heavy kitchen device, and a bag of onions later I was ready to go. I had a ticket to ride.

Apparently the hardest part of french onion soup is caramelizing a pound and a half of onions — it takes about 20 minutes. I ameliorated this by watching Empire Strikes Back on HBO cranked up so I could hear it over the onions three rooms away. Note to the uninformed: no one ever says “Luke, I am your father.”

I made two judgment calls on the recipe — one delicious and one eh. I couldn’t find Gruyère, even though I’ve seen it at Kroger every other time I’ve been there, so I substituted Smoked Gouda. Delicious. The recipe called for “red wine.” So I bought the cheapest bottle I could find which happened to be a Barefoot Shiraz. Eh. It kind of tasted like grape juice. If I were to do it over again I’d pick something way dry and only use half a cup instead of a whole cup.

Even my notably picky wife — who hates soup (unless Maura made it) — liked it.