Onion Powder

I think it was John Thorne, my reading tends to overlap. The stove was hot and I was reading at the island and decided to make an onion soup. What I remembered was cooking onions beyond being merely caramelized. In my largest cast iron skillet, over medium heat, a mixture of olive oil and butter, I do the standard onion treatment, which takes about forty minutes, then pull that skillet slightly off the heat, keep stirring until the moisture is completely gone. You end up, this takes a long time, with onions that dissolve on contact. Incredibly rich in sweetness. I use it to thicken the chicken broth for the second batch of caramelized onions that make up the body of the soup. On toast, in a bowl, with lots of shredded Gruyere. I think about doing this with mushrooms, the combination. In India, where it's more difficult to store root vegetables, this onion powder is made and stored in jars. I end up spending an entire afternoon making a bowl of soup. Got to town as soon as I could, and the driveway was fine going down, but I could tell it was going to be squirrely getting back up. Still I needed the trip, library and Kroger because serious cold and snowy weather coming Sunday. Back-up the back-ups. Got everything to make a noodle and ground meat casserole, onions, roasted tomatoes. With a pone of cornbread it'll will last for three days. Stopped at the museum, to use their heated bathroom, arranged lunch with TR, met him at the pub and had a beer. Kroger was packed, because of the coming weather, but I got in and out quickly since I just had a few items and everyone shoved me to the front of the line. Saw B (eventually you see everyone at Kroger) and said I'd stop by on my way home, which I did and we talked about how we might cure and cook the other very large pot roast; Scott's cooking the larger of the two a week from Sunday and I look forward to that, but B wants to do something different with the other one. I tell him I'll look into it, there must be some recipes/cures from Argentina. The driveway was a nightmare, I got two-thirds of the way up and got bogged down, back up and then power through a soft spot. I'm so relieved to get back on the ridge, with supplies, with whiskey and tobacco, that I almost broke into song. I got another smoked jowl, because they've proved so useful, and several 'bunches' of greens, a bunch is a mess, meaning a meal but I don't have any idea how this is actually quantified. I strip off the leaves, then slice the stems and braise them in butter, add some onions and celery, cook this for a hour, then broil cod fillets on top of it. I smear them with a mild mustard sauce.