It all started when I bought one of those mesh orange bags of about 10 yellow onions, because it was almost cheaper than buying the one onion I needed that day at the store. I used one, then the rest of them filled my fruit and veggie bowl on top of my fridge. I was puzzled as to what to do with the rest, but I knew something would come to me over the weekend, when my kitchen creativity hits its peak.
The weekend came, I was working on my jigsaw puzzle, and it came to me. I would caramelize the onions and do something with them. That would definitely use up about five of them, and I would have more space in my veggie bowl to fill it with green things.
I cut up five onions and put them into the new casserole pan Santa brought me, and let them cook on medium heat for, well, forever. OK, more like 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
The last time I cooked onions like this, I didn’t live in a studio apartment. Then I thought they’d fill my place with a pleasant, sweet aroma, but in reality my entire house just smelled of body odor. Luckily, it was warmer weather this time around, so when the onions were golden and soft, I checked to make sure my burner was off, opened my windows, and took a walk around my neighborhood. I came back to my house and the smell had lifted, along with my spirits.
I cut some chicken tenderloin strips into cubes and put it in with the onions, and cooked it until the chicken was tender and no longer pink. I added a slab of butter, Italian dressing, and about ⅓ cup of Ken’s Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce. It looked like a nice topping for some angel hair pasta, so I cooked that up too.
I topped the pasta with the oniony, sweet, honey mustard chicken concoction, and gave it a little topper of mozzarella cheese. I would have added more cheese, but the remainder of the bag was all I had.
I sat down to my dinner, and was skeptical of the lack of colors on my plate. It looked awfully yellow, but I gave it a go anyway. I took a couple of bites — not too bad! Actually, it was quite tasty. It was sweet, but the Italian dressing in the sauce contrasted with the sweetness of the honey mustard and the caramelized onions. I did not realize I’d be able to turn a bag of onions and some ingredients around my house into a tasty pasta dinner, but I did, and it made me feel like a magician.
Quite full, I went back to working on my puzzle, proud of my resourceful creativity. I looked up: Now there were only five onions left in my veggie bowl.
