French Onion Soup and French Dip Leftovers.

Maybe it's because I live in New Jersey, the land of diners. Or maybe its because...

What could be bad about caramelized onions, roast beef and yummy bread. Oh and Gruyere. Mmmmmm.

So if you are one of the billion people who are addicted to Pinterest like I am. You see French Dip sandwiches posted all the time. But when you actually read the recipes, its cream of this, packaged onions, blah blah blah. This lead me to the idea of the double dip weekend dinner (get it, double dip, french dip..har har har )

Basically after reading about 10 different recipes for a French dip I came to a few conclusions. Its basically beef cooked long and slow in french onion soup plus a few other ingredients and every single recipe is too darn lazy to make french onion soup so they tell you to use either packaged onion soup mix, which isn't the WORST thing. Or concentrated french onion soup from a can. YUCK.

Well... I made the darn soup and it wasn't that complicated.

I used my favorite source for recipes, The Pioneer Woman. The recipe for her soup is Here.

I do have a few err...corrections of things I'd change for next time. But the recipe is great and I am sure for most people its 100% perfect the way it is. For me and my wild taste buds, it could be doctored up a bit.

Feel free to follow my suggestions or to use her recipe exactly, either way it'll be a great soup.

Things I would change:
Use half the stick of butter.
Cook in the oven, completely covered AND for less time. I'd say 25-30 minutes tops
Use STOCK instead of BROTH. The difference between the two is that stock is completely unseasoned and takes the flavor of what you use it with. you can salt and pepper it yourself, to your own liking.

This made a really lovely dinner for hubby and I. It is a rich and delicious soup and the crusty bread and Gruyere cheese make it really filling, even for a meat lover such as my DH.

Even though its called french onion soup. French Gruyere isn't actually necessary, and in most cheese shops it is called "Comte"not "French Gruyere". The cheese man at Fairway thought I was an imbecile.

Swiss Gruyere is the best to use because of its melting qualities and less "stinky cheese-ness" yes I made that saying up.

On to the French Dip.

After two very large bowls of soup the night before. I filled the remaining soup into my crock pot and added 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon Worcestershire, 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes  and 1.5 lbs of "Bottom Round". After 5 hours of cooking on low. I sliced the meat very very thin and put it back for another 3 hours.

The beef was so moist, tender and delicious I almost ate it without the bread or the dipping!

Fairway makes some unbelievable french baguette and it was still warm when I bought it. YUM

No one will hold it against you if you add on the left over gruyere, I did :)

Side Notes:

While I have your attention I wanted to mention a few things.. First off. I am wondering if my followers? (assuming I have some) Prefer a step by step picture tutorial. Truth be told, I skip all of that mumbo jumbo and head straight for the recipe. But I would like to make you happy so let me know.

Secondly, If you have a blog that is at all related to having kids, food, desserts, parties, etc. Lets team up. I am always open to new affiliates.

Lastly, I need some web maintaince help, if you know HTML and can fancy up my blog and make me a button, I will gladly trade services with anything from my ETSY STORE.

xoxo