Playing with the Classics: French Onion Soup Gratinee

I'm alone again as Certain Someone has flown off to yet another business trip. In thinking about dinner for one , with some leftovers I was stumped. I ran across some inexpensive beef shanks and immediately thought of soup. A french onion soup to be exact. I remember my first as a young high school student in Washington DC. On a field trip, I had the most incredible soup chock full of onions , beef and topped with gooey Gruyere. Heaven! I have rarely come across a onion soup I didn't like, but none compare like your first. And I liked the heartiness of the beef floating in it.

So I decided to roast the shanks and onions until caramelized and brown, deglaze with red wine and chicken stock,add spices , herbs and some beef soup base, water and slowly cook until the meat was tender and started to fall of the shanks. If you don't want to go through all of that but want the gist of a perfect example try this recipe. Either way its all good. I couldn't find Gruyere so I settled on a tangy Fontinilla cheese( Italian, I know) and it did just the trick.Hopefully there will be some leftover soup in the freezer when Certain Someone comes back home.