Slow Cooker Apple Onion Soup

With this past week being in the 50's and rainy, I felt the need to make lots of soup. Being that French Onion soup is one of my favorites, when I received this recipe through Paula Deen's monthly newsletter, I was intrigued. A little worried too. Would it taste weird combining the apples with onions? To me, that doesn't sound too good! So after cooking it all day, I was dying to taste it. Suprisingly, it was good! The diced apples add texture and the apple juice in the recipe gives it a slight sweet taste. Add that to the cinnamon sprinked on the bread, and the flavors taste just like Fall should. I hope you enjoy it too!

Slow Cooker Apple Onion Soup

1/2 cup butter (I used about 4 tablespoons of SmartBalance butter)

4 large sweet onions, thinly sliced

3 apples peeled and diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

5 cups beef stock

1 cup apple juice

1/4 cup white wine (I used cooking sherry)

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. brown sugar

1/2 tsp. salt (I omitted due to large amount of salt already in recipe)

1/4 tsp. thyme

1/2 tsp. black pepper, freshly ground

For Cinnamon Cheese Toast Top:

6 slices French bread, sliced

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese

In slow cooker on high, combine butter, onions, apples and garlic. Cover and cook on high for 45 to 60 minutes or until the onions begin to brown around the edges. (I didn't use the cooker. Instead I completed this step on the stove top with a frying pan)

Sprinkle mixture with flour and stir to coat (at this point I added the mixture to the crock pot). Add beef stock, apple juice, white wine, Worcestershire, brown sugar, thyme, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high 3 to 4 hours until onions are tender and soup is hot.

To serve: Ladle soup into ovenproof crocks. Top with one slice of bread per crock. Sprinkle cinnamon over each bread slice and cover with 1/4 cup of cheese. Place under preheated broiler on low for about 2 minutes or until browned.

Makes 6 servings.

"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."
-Stanley Horowitz