Cream of onion soup (p. 145) and Sauteed chicken livers (p. 440)

I have been getting amazingly behind on the randomly selected list so I looked it over to see if there was anything that I didn't want to eat but that mom would enjoy. Cream of onion soup (p. 145) was an obvious choice--I don't really like onions but my mom loves them.

Be very, very careful at the first step of the recipe--you cook two cups of diced onions in some butter over medium heat for TWENTY MINUTES! That's a really long time. The onions really, really wanted to burn. My mom was convinced that they wouldn't make it the full time--but they did.

I added flour and salt to the onions and then added turkey stock and heavy cream. After the mixture was cooked for a while, I added some of the hot soup to some beaten egg yolks:

That mixture was added back to the pot:

And done! It didn't even require any immersion blending! Mom really liked it and it was really easy. I think it would have been particularly good with onions out of the garden and it really showcases the onion flavor (there are almost no other ingredients). The recipe doesn't make very much soup, only four cups, so if you are anything like mom or I, you probably want to double it.

When I spotted Sauteed chicken livers (p. 440) on the randomly selected list, I knew mom would be eating that rather than me. Chicken livers are very cheap and I wish I liked them! But I don't. When I was working on my Master's degree I was trained for a beef flavor taste panel which highly sensitized me to livery flavor. I went from not liking the flavor of liver to absolutely despising it.

I rinsed them and separated them into their lobes.

I then cooked them for about a minute on each side in some butter. Watch them, they pop! In fact, some of them flipped themselves over at the minute mark (apparently, chicken livers are helpful).

I removed the chicken livers and then added onion to the pan, cooking it until it was brown and "crisp".

Apple juice was added and the crispy bits were scraped up. I added some turkey stock (the grocery store had turkey backs for $.30 each and I couldn't resist) and reduced it until it was syrupy.

And then popped the livers back in:

I actually think that picture is pretty attractive! Too bad it's of chicken livers. The whole house smelled like liver--it was disgusting. My mom was ecstatic. She said it was totally different than how she made them but they had a nice flavor. She even (gag) ate them cold the next day (gag). It hurts me to even type that. Be careful if you make these--there is a lot of chances to burn the whole thing and ruin all of your hard work.