Julia Goes Vegan

The ingredients on the left (carrots, celery, garlic pepper, bay leaf) are for the veggie stock, and the thick onion base comes from the fresh onions, veggie butter, olive oil, flour and wine. Add a little sugar and salt to taste.

2) Cooking the onions down with the healthy fats creates an amazing flavor. You cook them down for a long time (almost 45 minutes) until they turn deep golden brown. The darker the brown the better.

3) This is where I ran into trouble. After the onions cook down you should incorporate the flour then the vegetable stock. The mistake I made was that when I added the stock that delicious flavor that was in the onion base became too diluted and I panicked! I hurried to add more salt, then the soup became too salty. Much, much too salty. Sometimes, when you add too much salt to something you can soak up the salt with raw potato. I put in a few potatoes, but what I didn't understand at the time was that starch becomes a thickening agent. The french soup turned into a thick stew and then I tried to water down again with more stock... so again, looking forward to some professional chef supervision next time. Dont underestimate how difficult cooking can really be!

4) The croutons are what turned out to be the best part. Using day old french bread and some vegan cheese, I broiled the bread in the oven for about 7 minutes and they tasted fantastic. Cheesy and crunchy.