How To Dice An Onion

It’s a cold March day with occasional flurries of snow. This day calls for soup, homemade cream of tomato soup. As I was dicing the onion I wondered why it took me so many years to learn the easiest way to do it.

First, cut of the top of the onion, but leave the root end intact. Stand the onion on its head and cut it in half, going down through the root end. Peel off the outside layer(s) of one half. Now, lay the onion half cut side down and make deep slits toward the root end without cutting the root. Next, cut the onion crosswise. Make the last cut about ½ inch from the root end. That’s it. You’re done unless you need to dice the other half, too.

By the way, this homemade cream of tomato soup beats Campbell’s all to pieces. I've posted it before, but just in case...

Cream of Tomato Soup

3 T. butter or olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery with leaves

1 quart home-canned tomatoes or 2 pounds chopped fresh tomatoes

¼ t. dried thyme or ½ t. dried summer savory

½ t. dried basil

½ t. paprika

grindings of black pepper

3 T. flour

14 ounces chicken broth

½ cup half and half (or more if desired)

½ teaspoon sugar if desired

In a large saucepan, saute the onion, and celery in the butter or oil until tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in thyme or summer savory, basil, and paprika and cook another minute or so. Add the tomatoes and some black pepper.

Simmer 10 minutes if using fresh tomatoes. Home-canned tomatoes don’t need this step.

Add chicken broth, reserving ¼ cup. Cover and simmer for 10 to 25 minutes.

Stir the flour into the reserved chicken broth to dissolve. Slowly add to the tomato mixture while stirring.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender. Stir in cream. Return the soup to heat, but do not allow it to boil.

Serve it garnished with chopped parsley or chopped chives and a dollop of sour cream.

Snow has seriously started now. I’m going to eat soup.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer

Self Sufficient, Sort of

Self sufficiency isn't like pregnancy. While a woman is either pregnant or not, a person or family can be self sufficient in varying degrees. No one can maintain a decent standard of living through complete self sufficiency, but we do what we can with the resources available to us.

There's something very satisfying about producing part of one's food. It makes us feel a little less dependent on our nation's food delivery system. We know exactly how some of our food was produced and where it came from.

Often when we sit down to eat a meal one of us will comment on the number of its ingredients that came from Paradise. We count only vegetables, fruit and herbs from our garden and eggs our chickens lay.

One cool evening last week when making cream of tomato soup I did an ingredient check. In the first step, sweating onions and celery in olive oil, everything came from the grocery store. (Our home grown onions ran out months ago.)

In the next step our score improved. Four of the six ingredients were ours: thyme, basil, garlic and the main ingredient, tomatoes. Where are the tomatoes? In the Brown Cow yogurt container taken from the freezer earlier that day. There's no garlic showing in the picture either, but it is in the small plastic container of green stuff. Every summer I make a mixture of basil, garlic and a little olive oil pureed in a mini food processor. When I need garlic and basil I take a container from the freezer, let it thaw a bit and spoon out what I need. The thyme is in the tall jar with the pink sticky note. (It's almost gone, but I harvested thyme a couple of weeks ago for the coming year.)

The other two ingredients are La Chinata smoked Spanish paprika and Better Than Bouillon organic chicken base. The soup is thickened with a little flour. Just before serving the soup I stirred in some half and half and sprinkled on some chopped chives from the garden.

Four homegrown ingredients and seven imported – that's not too shabby.

I didn't take a picture of the finished soup, but here's the recipe. (I didn't use the sugar, so it wasn't included in the count.)

Cream of Tomato Soup

3 T. butter or olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery with leaves

1 quart home-canned tomatoes or 2 pounds chopped fresh tomatoes

¼ t. dried thyme or ½ t. dried summer savory

½ t. dried basil

½ t. paprika

grindings of black pepper

3 T. flour

14 ounces chicken broth

½ cup half and half (or more if desired)

In a large saucepan, saute the onions in the butter or oil until tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in thyme or summer savory, basil, and paprika and cook another minute or so. Add the tomatoes and some black pepper.

Simmer 10 minutes if using fresh tomatoes. Home-canned tomatoes don’t need this step.

Add chicken broth, reserving ¼ cup. Cover and simmer for 10 to 25 minutes, depending on whether the tomatoes are canned or fresh.

Stir the flour into the reserved chicken broth to dissolve. Slowly add to the tomato mixture while stirring. Add a half-teaspoon of sugar if the soup seems too tart.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender. Stir in cream. Return the soup to heat, but do not allow it to boil.

Serve it up garnished with chopped parsley or chopped chives and a dollop of sour cream.