Mmmmm...I love the smell of French Onion Soup!  Just never have time to make it...until I found this great recipe!

I was a little wary, it involves the slow cooker.  But it already smells so darn good!  We're carmelizing the onions now...and I'll make the soup tomorrow.

Basically, you slice up 3 pounds of onions (I found that a mandoline works best) and stick them in a crock pot with a stick of butter on Low for 12-14 hours.  Stir it occasionally, so the butter gets all through and the edge pieces don't get fried to a crisp :-)  You can tell they're done when they're a dark mahogany color.  (It's apparently almost impossible for them to burn in there!)

(I know the stick of butter is a lot, but after you get the onions out of the cooking liquid and cool it, you can skim the butter right off.  Then you can add little bits of it to other cooking projects - soups, veggies, browning meat, whatever!)

When that's done, keep 3 to 4 cups of the onions (they reduce, so it'll probably be pretty much the whole thing) and the cooking liquid in there - add enough beef or vegetable broth to make 6 cups.  Salt and pepper to taste, simmer it in there over medium-high heat for another 12-14 hours.

Put it in bowls, top each one with a slice of toasted french bread and cheese (Gruyere and Swiss work well), and broil it for a couple minutes until the cheese melts and begins to bubble.

It takes a day or two, but the slow cooker does all the work and the house smells terrific (if you like French Onion Soup, that is!)  I've always been scared to try it, because I'm either not home long enough for the thing to simmer on the stove, or I can't devote the block of time to making sure that it works right.

Yum!!!