Today our refrigerator pal is onion-soup onions. Scanning your shelves, you think, what? This is not a leftover I have. Dear friends it’s October, and time to simmer soup. If you haven’t yet done so you should, and you can start with my favorite French Onion-Cider Soup, here. If like me you’re heavy-handed with the onions, you can enjoy a few rounds of soup and still have plenty left over – a translucent golden heap, steeped in loving wine-kissed soup. I look forward to this heap, because soup-smooched onions are a bonus, an ingredient so prized there should be onion soup-onion-hunting pigs. Now – if you can resist caramelized snacking by the spoonful, here are five easy ways to use them:

1. Croque Monsieur Football Edition The Parisians would literally croak seeing their beloved snack all faux’ed up and served to screaming Chiefs fans. But can they argue with greatness? To make these open-faced sandwiches, start with slices of thick, eggy bread like challah or brioche. Swipe on a dab of grainy mustard, then add Black Forest ham and onion soup-onions. Top with sliced Gruyere (or Fontina, or Jarlsberg) cheese, and sprinkle top with a dash of cayenne pepper. Lay sandwiches on sheet pan and place under hot broiler, just until cheese bubbled and browns. Serve (to viewers) immediately.

2. French Onion Omelet I made one of these for Josie earlier today, a rolled yellow omelet stuffed with spinach leaves, soup onions, melting Gruyere and nutmeg, and when asked how it was she could not answer, just a sound. To use onion soup-onions in omelets, first make sure they’re drained. Although your soup is ostensibly gone, the onions still hold liquid – so before using, let onions rest briefly on a paper towel to dry. On to the omelets: for wonderful fillings, try combining onions with fresh spinach, Swiss cheese and a dash of nutmeg, or mixed wild mushrooms with onions and goat cheese.

3. Maple-Onion Roast Butternut Squash Preheat oven to 400 F. Halve, peel, and remove seeds from a large (approx 3 lbs) butternut squash. Cut into 3/4″ chunks, then toss squash pieces in bowl with 1 cup onion soup-onions, 1/4 cup maple syrup, and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Season to taste with sea salt, ground pepper and dried thyme. Spread squash mixture on sheet pan and bake approximately 40 minutes, or until squash pieces are lightly browned on sides, and softened. Stir and turn squash pieces every 12-15 minutes to better caramelize and avoid burning.

4. Onion-Dill Cream Cheese Not your average spread. In food processor fitted with metal blade, place 8 oz softened cream cheese, one large scoop onion soup-onions, and a few large sprigs of fresh dill.  Process to almost smooth, leaving a few onion pieces, occasionally stopping processor to scrape down sides. Turn mixture into bowl and stir in sea salt and ground pepper to taste. Try serving with bagels and marinated cucumbers, or pumpernickel and smoked salmon.

5. Pecan, Brie and French Onion Quesadillas Here I borrow (and mess around with ) a great idea from Gwen Ashley Walters, a marvelous blogging chef who first shared these quesadillas in her July 2009 Tell Simmer. Take 2 (8-inch) flour tortillas and spread each with a heaping tablespoon of chopped onion soup-onions.  Divide 3 tablespoons chopped, toasted pecans and sprinkle each half over onions. Add 3 ounces (about 1/2 cup) chopped Brie cheese over one half of each tortilla.  Sprinkle pinch of sea salt and dash each of nutmeg and cayenne pepper over cheese on each tortilla. Fold tortillas in half, pressing gently. Cook quesadillas on a preheated griddle (or in a skillet) until tortilla browns and cheese starts to melt, about 2 to 3 minutes, flip and brown the other side. Cut each tortilla into four wedges before serving.

So there we have it – onion soup, the gift that keeps giving. Any leftover love ideas to share?

Lately I’ve tried to change the scenery, to write and do other non-cooking tasks outside the kitchen. Why? Certainly it cuts down snacking. Working elsewhere puts baguettes and Nutella out of reach, and keeps me from drifting toward the what’s-for-dinner zone. But other rooms must be dull, because I am still glued here, with a messy bun that redefines messy bun. I am peering in the oven or upright at the stove, with one ear to the phone, two hands in a bowl and a lightly breaded keyboard.

Greg certainly benefits from my base. The other day I was about to throw steak over arugula for lunch – but decided to save the steak for dinner. Instead I grabbed a few linen-shaded eggs, a fresh gift from a brave chicken-raising neighbor, and they took a star turn on the salad – poached – with parmesan, pepper, and mustard vinaigrette.

The next night we had roast chicken, and I’d planned a little spinach-ricotta souffle on the side. When I found more arugula than spinach, it became arugula-ricotta souffle, vividly green and equally good. You can mess around in the kitchen; you can mix and match and literally think on your feet. You can teach tired old tools brand new tricks.

Like the cheese shaver, which loves butter. Who knew?

If you like to play with your food, do as you please: add that vanilla, take out onions, toss the recipe, make your fine-rib shirt an apron. It is, after all, your kitchen. Late afternoon in my kitchen, light barges through panes above the sink, rays strong enough to blind the cook, but I like it.

I like the gleaming faucet. I like stirring in bright shadows. I don’t mind squinting or pushing back hair or tripping on Cleo, in dreams on the floor. I am always in the kitchen, a room where I taste honey, correct sauce, know the answers. Anyone can triumph there, or fight, or get engaged, or take a call that stops you cold; in the kitchen, you may fill the teapot and go on. A reporter once asked my favorite teacher, a chef, do you eat your mistakes? He looked stunned. “No,” he smiled, “we fix them.”

If you wish to build your own, here’s the sedimentary diagram of the club:

* Toasted Potato Bread
* Mayonnaise
* Crispy Thick-Cut Pepper Bacon
* Fresh Spinach
* Baby Swiss Cheese
* Roast Turkey
* Cranberry-Cherry Balsamic Relish
* Toasted Potato Bread

(Yes, Potato Bread and no, I don’t think that carb can get any more white)

* please note that the extra dough in the “egg wash shine” photo is a small roll that Josie braided, baked and consumed immediately, thus making it ineligible for the “all-from-one-challah” game.  Just so you know.

Build your own challah and watch it disappear! With all the traditional challah recipes in the world, I hold this one – from King Arthur Flour – reliably above all others. Try the four-strand braiding technique or simply stick with the easy three-strand and break out the butter. When you’re down to the last crumbs, you’ll know it’s time to make more.

Remember these?

Somehow, a few caramelized bananas escaped Josie’s ice cream bowl, and let me tell you, that’s no small feat. They sat in the refrigerator quietly until Sunday morning, when I whisked them back to the counter…

…and pressed them into service. Literally.

At first glance, a handful of formerly sizzled bananas don’t look so hot – but after a toss through batter and a trip through the iron, they look delicious. They look like Caramelized Banana Waffles, and Sunday morning suddenly recalls the sundae last night.

We bite into the creamy-crisp bananarama’d waffles and I realize…they’re gone. No more toasty bananas. Oh, it will be a cruel, cruel summer and now I’m getting misty about the leftovers. Clearly there’s only one thing to do:

Make more!

The evening before, I’d mixed up some rugelach dough – cream cheese dough – planning to make a batch of pick-me-up cookies for a slightly depressed friend.

But I had a slab of incredible pepper bacon sitting around, and unable to resist its black-peppered, smoky goodness, I decided to use half the dough as a base for Tarte Flambee – sort of a bacon and onion pizza – for Friday night’s dinner.

Inspired by my head still in France and modernemama‘s enthusiasm, it was bacony perfection, a license to eat four kinds of fat. Oh my.

Now it was Saturday and I was annoyed in the kitchen. I’d abandoned the white chocolate mess and was huffily munching cold bacon tart. Last I checked I’d come in here to do something, not just eat leftovers. I took another slurp of limeade, grabbed the remaining rugelach dough and looked in the fruit bowl.

Slim pickings. Josie eats drippy nectarines all summer like a fruit bat, and there was only one left.

But with a bit of cream cheese dough for crust, one nectarine turned into four little tarts.

There was still a little dough left. I could make a few rugelach for that sad friend of mine, or – nibbling the last chunk – I could finish it off myself.

Hmm. I had a rapidly decreasing ball of dough, and a few strawberries in the fridge. And a lone kiwi.

After a few minutes of rolling, pressing, more nibbling and baking, there were tart shells.

And the presence of tart shells called for the whipping of cream.

Now I had tart shells, honey whipped cream, strawberries, a peeled kiwi and one bowl of lonely, hardened white chocolate in the corner. I narrowed my eyes.

Please?

Oh, fine. Who wouldn’t forgive white chocolate? You can play too.

So the sad friend led to rugelach which didn’t get made, which led to a tart flambee, four nectarine tarts, some failed white chocolate curls, sliced strawberries, a kiwi and freshly whipped cream.

Finally, it led to a few pretty things at the end of the day. Just for fun, and just to show how when you least expect it, when you are hot and frustrated and sucking down limeade, everything has a way…

…of coming full circle.

Cream Cheese Dough

8 oz cream cheese, cold
8 oz unsalted butter, cold
2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch salt

Place flour and salt in food processor and process a few seconds, to blend. Chunk butter and cream cheese in pieces over flour, then process, using on-off motion, until dough just forms a ball. Turn out onto floured surface and knead lightly into a smooth mass.

Roll, shape and bake into tart crusts, sweet turnovers, rugelach, and other cookies.
Keeps several days wrapped in the refrigerator, and freezes well.