French Onion Soup & Spicy Asparagus

French Onion Soup

I was inspired to try this recipe after having an amazing bowl of french onion soup at a French/Italian restaurant called "The Vans on the Hill". Its a cozy little place on top of a small hill with a great view. So I did a little research online (specifically the recipe on this blog- http://foodieshope.blogspot.com/ - helped me a lot) and mixed and matched a couple of recipes to come up with this -

Ingredients:

1) One medium sized white onion (thinly sliced into 1 inch pieces)
2) A bunch of green(spring) onions (finely chopped)
3) An inch wide cube of butter (You could use margarine if you like)
4) A tea spoon of all purpose flour
5) Salt & pepper to season
6) Vegetable broth
7) Fresh thyme
8) Crushed garlic
9) A mini french baguette of any bread of your choice
10) Grated mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1) In a pan, melt the butter and saute the white onions until golden brown. For extra flavor saute until the edges are a little burnt.
2) Set some chopped green onions aside for garnishing. Add the rest of the green onions, crushed garlic and thyme and saute for 2 minutes.
3) Add the all purpose flour and let it brown for a minute.
4) Pour in the vegetable broth and season with salt and pepper.
5) While the soup comes to a simmer, cut the french baguette into slices big enough to cover the bowl that you will be serving the soup in. Place these under the browler until the edges are golden brown. Top them with the grated cheese and shove them under the broiler again until the cheese melts.
6) Dish out the bubbling soup into a bowl and top it with the slice of bread so that it is half soaked. Sprinkle the green onions set aside and enjoy!!!!

Note: If you want to spice this up a bit you could add some red chilli flakes or flavour it with a couple of drops of soy sauce.

Spicy Asparagus

This recipe was inspired by a couple of shows on food network and I have seen Rachael and Giada make amazing variations of Asparagus. This is my own version:)

Ingredients:

1) 10-15 stalks of asparagus
2) 5-10 cloves of garlic
3) Olive oil
4) Sale and pepper
5) Red chili flakes

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Break the bottoms off the asparagus stalks. A great trick suggestion by a cook on the food network is to bend the asparagus until the unwanted part splits away from the tender part.
2) Spread out the asparagus on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil (to make clean up easier)
3) Spray or brush olive oil to coat the asparagus and sprinkle salt, pepper, red chili flakes and finely chopped garlic on top of the asparagus.
4) Bake the asparagus for 10 minutes and flip over the asparagus stalks and bake again for 10 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy!

Note: You may season with some lemon juice before serving to get a citrus tang to the asparagus:)