I have a confession. We routinely order food to go from Outback Steakhouse and roughly 85% of the reason we order from there is so that I can get some of their AWESOME creamy onion soup. It’s soooooooooo good.
Imagine my surprise when surfing around the internet, I FOUND A KNOCK OFF RECIPE! We tried it the next day and LOVED it. The recipe, as written, doesn’t make a ton of soup. We were eating it as the main course for our meal and we didn’t have any leftovers. We made it again a week later and tripled the recipe. 🙂
Just be warned, this isn’t a healthy soup by any stretch of the imagination!
CREAMY ONION SOUP
INGREDIENTS:
White Sauce:
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
Soup:
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups sweet yellow onions (thinly sliced)
1 (15 ounce) can chicken broth or 1 (15 ounce) can stock
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 cup diced Velveeta cheese, cubes (compressed in measuring cup)
1 1/2-1 3/4 cups white sauce
4 bay leaves (more or less if you like)
shredded cheese to garnish
INSTRUCTIONS:
Prepare the white sauce:
In a 1-quart saucepan melt butter. Once butter is melted, add flour. Cook on medium heat until the flour turns thick and comes away from the side of the saucepan.
Pour milk in flour a little at a time and stir constantly. Mixture should thicken and become like thick pudding.
Remember to stir constantly taking care not to let mixture lump, set aside off from heat until ready to use for the soup.
Prepare the soup:
In 2-quart saucepan place 3 tablespoons butter and sliced onions. Cook at low to medium heat stirring frequently until soft and clear but not brown.
Add chicken broth or stock from can, chicken bouillon cubes, bay leaves, pepper, and stir until completely heated through.
Add white sauce and Velveeta cheese to onion mixture. White sauce will be thick because it has been removed from the heat. Simmer on medium low heat until the cheese is melted and all ingredients are blended, stirring constantly.
Turn temperature to warm and let cook for additional 30 minute to 45 minutes.
Serve with a garnish of shredded cheese and a couple of slices of Italian bread.
I know I’ve mentioned it several times in various posts but I haven’t actually come right out and talked about our plans. I’ve been itching to take the boys to Walt Disney World since….well….since before Matthew was born. I finally compromised with Mike and was promised a trip in 2011. Thankfully, Mike is equally excited!
We leave Sunday, November 13 and return Saturday, November 19. We chose this time of year so that we could (hopefully) avoid the huge crowds and insane Florida heat. We’re also super excited to see the parks and resorts all decked out for Christmas since they start working on Christmas decorations right after Halloween. Another reason we picked this week? How about the fact that my birthday falls during the trip!?!?!? Can you imagine a better way to spend your birthday!?!?!
Thanks to a pretty kick ass 40% off email I received, we will be staying at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. Our resort is absolutely gorgeous (as seen here) so we’re pretty excited. Our resort has also some of the best displays of holiday decorations. Check out some photos here and here!
We’ve booked our trip with the Disney Dining Plan so I’m working on where we’d like to book sit-down dinner reservations. There are a lot of places to choose from and only a limited amount of time to see everything. I get to start booking reservations on May 17th (180 days prior) so I have a little time to figure everything out.
As I’ve mentioned before, we plan to eat in Cinderella’s Castle. With the Princesses!!! ON! MY! BIRTHDAY!!! (I’m not remotely excited about this, am I? LOL) I’m thinking Ian and Matthew might need some Prince costumes to wear during our meal. (Grandma Samulski – interested in helping us out?!?!?)
We’re also thinking about eating with characters at Chef Mickey’s, Play and Dine at Hollywood and Vine and possibly checking out the antics at the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue.
Tentative plans include 3 days at Magic Kingdom, 1 day at Epcot and 1 day at Hollywood Studios. We plan to go to the hotel every day after lunch for naps, are not planning to get hopper tickets and will probably be skipping the special event they have during the Christmas season called Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party (because the boys are too young to stay up late enough for us to fully enjoy it).
It’s a lot to get figured out so stay tuned!
The weather on St. Patrick’s Day was unseasonably nice. I think the temperature was hovering right around 60 degrees when I left work. Mike and I had planned to make Shepard’s Pie for dinner but scrapped that idea to enjoy the time outside. He ended up grilling some burgers and hot dogs for dinner and the boys rode bikes up and down the driveway.
Before starting out for the first time this year:
Ian really likes the scooter that he got for his birthday:
Zipping right past me like a pro:
Heading back towards me…I can’t wait for the trees to have leaves and the grass to turn green again:
Big boy on his Thomas the Tank Engine bike:
It’s a little hard to believe that he wasn’t tall enough to push the pedals on Christmas Day when he got the bike.
Now he can reach them easily:
Having fun in the fresh air:
Typically, when I get my camera out, he puts on a great big frowny face, throws a big “stop” hand up at me and says “NO PI-CHURES, MOMMY!”
And sometimes he plays along….
I love this boy.
I bought two sets of Disney Princess figures from the Disney Store this week. We’ll be eating with the Princesses in Cinderella’s Castle when we go to Disney World in November. My hope is that Ian and Matthew can learn all the names before we go.
We’ve been watching the Princess movies a lot lately. Although they seem to enjoy the Princess movies, I don’t think it comes close to how much they love “Peter Pan”.
The Princesses might not be able to compete with Peter, Captain Hook and Mr. Smee but Ian and Matthew both said Belle was their favorite Princess. 🙂
After a few short hours of having the Princesses out, Matthew can pretty much identify all the Princesses by name.
My evil plan is working. 😉