French Onion Soup...or so I thought

My favorite soup soup is French Onion from Panera Bread.  I could probably eat this every day for lunch.  But Panera Bread is expensive, people.  $10 for half a sandwich and a cup of oh-so-yummy soup on a daily basis just won't fly around my house.  And unfortunately we don't have a Panera Bread close to work so I can't justify that as my less than once weekly lunch out.

The temps here finally dropped (we ran the heater this weekend!) and I figured it was a perfect time to try the soup.  Especially since we're climbing back into the mid-80's later this week.  Ugh.  To stick with my diet, I searched and found a recipe on Weight Watchers.

French Onion Soup adapted from WeightWatchers.com

• 1 T butter
• 3 vidalia onions, cut in half and sliced thin (I used sweet yellow)
• 6 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 t dried thyme
• 1/4 t black pepper
• grated Parmesan cheese (2 T per serving)

Melt the butter in a large soup pot.  Add the onions, sauteing about 20 minutes.  Add in the remaining ingredients and simmer 20-30 minutes.  If you have oven safe soup bowls, you can scoop the soup into a bowl with a serving of your favorite baguette and the cheese, melting it under the broiler for a few minutes.  The recipe above makes 4 servings at 3 points each, however add points for the bread.

Now here is where I'm unsure.  I wasn't a fan of the recipe.  I was bland.  Like really bland.  I added more spices.  And more pepper.  And still...eh.  I just didn't like it.  Jason did, but I wanted it to taste exactly like the soup from Panera.  And it didn't.  So tonight I'm going for round two.  We consumed most of the broth (what wasn't soaked up by onions) and I have a ton of onions left.  I'm going to toss them back into the cast iron skillet and saute them until they are really brown and caramelized.  Then I'm going to add in beef broth and not vegetable broth.  And...we'll see.  Wish me luck.