Renee Butcher

Classic French Onion Soup is a perfect union of sweet caramelized onions, crusty french bread croutons, and bubbly melted cheese. Classic French Onion Soup is a perfect union of sweet caramelized onions, crusty french bread croutons, and bubbly melted cheese. French baguettes are the usual crouton of choice for French Onion Soup; however, I prefer to use French Batard. For this reason, we often sub in a light chicken stock or vegetable stock (for a vegetarian French Onion Soup) in place of the traditional beef broth base, and white wine instead of the customary red or port.

In its most basic form, a Scotch egg is a soft or hard-boiled egg wrapped in ground sausage, then coated with bread crumbs and baked or deep fried. To cover an egg with sausage, start with one prepared egg and one cold sausage ball. Gently lay a cold, dry, soft-boiled egg on top of the sausage oval, with the ends of the egg perpendicular to the long sides of the oval. When the sausage appears to be distributed uniformly around the egg, gently pass the egg carefully from one hand to the other a couple of times, allowing the warmth of your palms to smooth the outside surface a bit and the gentle pressure to even out any bumps or rough spots on the surface.

Fresh, crisp, and warmly spiced, this Easy Apple Strudel (Apfelstrudel) is fancy enough for the most elaborate menu, yet simple enough for any night of the year. Fresh, crisp, and warmly spiced, this Easy Apple Strudel (Apfelstrudel) is fancy enough for the most elaborate Oktoberfest menu, yet simple enough for any night of the year. Not only do I love the flaky, paper-thin crunch that the phyllo lends to the finished pastry, but the substitution makes this Easy Apple Strudel recipe incredibly easy, and (nearly) foolproof. For apple strudel, I usually go with a tart baking apple and a sweet or sweet-tart apple.

Chicken Stock: Like the enchilada sauce, you can used canned stock, but I prefer to use homemade: it’s just so easy to make, plus it freezes well, Melt one tablespoon of butter, and then add frozen corn to hot butter and pan-fry, stirring constantly, until corn begin to turn golden brown. When I make this enchilada soup, I use original Velveeta, which I had found (after much trial and error) is the best thing to use to achieve the flavor and consistency we love so about the original Chili’s Enchilada Soup. Masa harina is made from field corn, which is dried and treated with a mixture of lime and water, loosening the hulls and softening the corn.