Living the Mad Dash

I know everyone is all pumpkin spice crazy right now- that’s a big ‘nah’ for me.

Right about now I'm thinking of a savory flavor like these caramelized onions. They are ridiculously good. They are so easy to make. They store in the fridge for at least a week (I’ve made it to two weeks before). They freeze nicely. They make for an extraordinary accent flavor in a variety of dishes: pizza topping, sautéed kale or spinach, scrambled eggs, toast. Basically, they make my artwork come alive.

I’ve found that these come out best when I make them in the oven. Roasting the onions really brings out the flavor vs just sautéing them. It’s not necessarily a fast process, but I promise it is worth it! It’s something that I just have cooking in the background while I’m doing other things around the house. It requires minimal supervision and because I get a lot of comments from my family (“it smells like Thanksgiving!” to “wow, I can STILL smell those onions.”) cooking in the oven reduces the onion smell in the house.

You need:

•4-5 huge onions

•3-4 tablespoons of olive oil

•1 teaspoon of high heat oil (vegetable or safflower)

•1 tablespoon salt

•an oven safe pan (I use my trusty cast iron skillet) Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Coat your skillet with the vegetable oil. Add sliced onions to skillet and toss with the olive oil and salt, taking care to coat all of the onions). For the first 30 minutes, stir onions in the skillet every 10 minutes to distribute their exposure to the heat more evenly. After that your pan will be nice and hot so you can check on them less frequently. These will take about 1&½ hours* to cook. When they are nicely browned- you’re done!

Store in a glass container in the fridge. OR freeze them by storing them in a large freezer-friendly resealable plastic bag. Make sure to press them flat in the bag so that you’ll have a thin layer of onions. Trust me, it’ll make it easier on you when it’s time to defrost them- you can just break a chunk off as you need it.

*P.S. You can speed up the cook time by increasing the heat. Just make sure to check and stir them more frequently! 450 degrees will get you done in 30-45 minutes, just check on them every five minutes to make sure they don’t burn.

Enjoy!

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