French Onion Soup Sandwich

If you watch enough Food Network, you will eventually hear all the chefs say "if you want to judge a restaurant's food, order the roasted chicken. If they can do a great roasted chicken, everything else should be great as well".

I offer a differing opinion!
I judge my restaurants based on their French Onion Soup.

If it is watery and bland, to me, they don't care enough about their food to develop the layers of flavor.
If there is barely any onion, what else are they cutting corners on.

If it is rich, warm, lots of onions, lots of gooey melted cheese...I am sold! I will come back, I will tell all my friends to come, I will bring family!

I am disappointed time and time again with restaurants and their soup. Simple solution, I make it at home ALL THE TIME.
Which, in turn, makes me even angrier because I know how simple it is to bring great flavors to a simple soup.

So, when I saw this recipe on the Iowa Girl Eats website, I knew we had to try it.

We used a loaf of Italian bread. Not the pre-sliced kind, the whole loaf sort. I cut the pieces very thick knowing it had to stand up to such a filling.
Even though my onions never stuck to the pan, I still slowly added all of my beef broth for the extra flavor.
One last "adjustment" since I was making this as a last minute lunch, I had no grueyre on hand. I used some swiss hubby had around and it worked just fine.

Ingredients:
1 Large sweet yellow onion
1 Tsp butter
1 Tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tsp worcestershire sauce
1 Bay leaf
Pinch of dried thyme
Salt and Pepper
¼- ⅓ Cup beef broth
Sliced hearty bread
Butter for spreading
Fontina, Gruyere, or Swiss cheese

Directions:
1. Heat butter, olive oil, and worcestershire sauce in a medium skillet over medium heat.
2. Cut onion in half, and then thinly slice each half
3. Separate the onion layers and add to pan
4. Season with salt and pepper, add bay leaf, stir well
5. Continue cooking, stirring every few minutes until onions turn golden brown and start to soften
6. If onion starts to stick, use splashes of beef broth to moisten
7. Cook for about 30 minutes, until onions are deep brown and soft.
8. Butter one side of bread. Place one (butter side down) on griddle or skillet.
9. Layer with cheese and onions.
10. Lay remaining slice of bread on top, butter side up.
11. Cook until both sides are golden brown and cheese has melted

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Ingredients

(bought the bread the day before and wanted to keep it from hardening)

Soooo filling! So glad I didn't make soup too!