Weeknight Kitchen: Onion soup with apple juice and thyme

I know I'm a little late on this post, but I figured I had better get it up before tomorrow.  If you get the newsletter "Weeknight Kitchen" from Splendid Table, you'll also know that I'm 2 weeks behind on dessert.  I am officially on Christmas break, and I will be studying for the GRE, so I figure I'll need some sweets to get me through.  I'll get caught up eventually.

The finished soup.  I think it's difficult to make soup look "pretty."

I was excited to see the recipe this week was "Onion soup with apple juice and thyme" especially since onions were on sale and my thyme plant is still hanging on.  The soup was very easy to make and used very few ingredients, so unlike last week it was an inexpensive recipe.  The soup was also very easy.  It took awhile, but most of it was inactive; I just had to stir the onions every once in awhile while they caramelized. The soup was sweet because of the caramelized onions and rich with Parmesan cheese.  I will definitely make this again.  

I did make a few changes.  First, I didn't have enough homemade chicken stock, so I used about half chicken and half vegetable.  I think you could even use beef stock, and this would taste great.  Second, could not find apple cider, so I subbed Simply Apple apple juice, and I don't think it affected the taste.  Finally, I caramelized the onions for about 10 minutes longer than the recipe called for.  Hint:  if the onions aren't browning you can add some salt.  Salt helps the onions release moisture, and they will brown faster.

  The onions after being in the pot for about a minute

Onions about 10 minutes into the cooking

Sorry about the weird lighting.  The finished onions!