The Best French Onion Soup Around!

My parents are both sick with colds, and it's been pretty chilly in my area lately. So I thought, what's better than soup for this? How about French Onion? So that's exactly what I did.

What you'll need:

• One baguette (I used white)
• 2-1/2 lbs. Onions (thinly sliced)
• Water (It's so hard to find... Jokes!)
• Miso. For this one, if you have the actual soup great! If you can't find it, pick up the soy bean paste. I'll add directions in the recipe about this.
• Fresh thyme
• Any type of mozzarella cheese alternative (I used vegan gourmet)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive Oil

Pre-Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius)

I'm so excited for you guys this tastes so good and it's so quick to make! First, what you want to do is cut the baguette diagonally in thin slices. The thin slices should be about one each each. The reason why is this is for the croutons! Cut about 8-10 of those. Get out your olive oil and use a knife to spread it on both sides of the bread. Put those pieces on a tray and pop them into the oven! Cook them long enough until you can see some golden brown.

Second, take out your onions. Cut off the ends, then press into the onion (not through it) and make a short line. Peel off the first layer from there! Quickly throw the ends away, and go to the sink. Wash your knife and onion off in cold water. This refrains from you crying! Cut thin slices from that, and repeat with as many onions as you choose (I used about 5).

Put the onions in a big soup pot, adding 1/4th cup oil to that. Put on medium to high heat, and stir for 20 minutes. Not continuously, but not every 5 minutes. Stir them about every 2-3 minutes, and stir for about 2-3 minutes until your 20 minutes are up. At the end, this results in yummy soft brown onions!

*Read only if you have miso soybean paste, if you don't, skip this step!* 

Take your soy bean miso paste and measure out 1/3rd of it. Add water to this until it all dissolves into a watery liquid. Stir until all you see is white/yellow/gray color. Then, pour out
until you have 1/3rd of a cup. Then you're done!

How is the bread coming along? Check it!!! If golden brown, take out and put on a cooling rack.

After the 20 minutes are done with the onions, put on medium heat. Put 3 cups of water into the pot. Add 1/3 cup of miso to that, also. Stir in salt and pepper to taste. 

Now, we're going to start broiling! Heat your broiler to the 200 mark. Place your rack the lowest it can go. Grab about three or four bowls (depending on how many you need) and put the soup in. Don't fill the soup all the way to the top of the bowls, leave about one inch room. Grab the bread, and put two or three on top of the soup. Grate (or sprinkle) cheese ontop of the bread. Repeat this process with each bowl you have. Put the soups in the broiler, and check every 5 minutes until you see little golden brown spots (for the best results, yum!) or until you see that it's just melted.

While that happens, clean up your area, or make garlic bread! Click this link for the recipe: http://thevganteen.blogspot.com/2013/04/yummy-garlic-bread.html 

Once the soup is done, take out and serve immediately!

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me at: thevganteen.blogspot.com
I'm so excited for you guys to take that first bite!
-Ilana xo