Tonight, Rob came over for dinner. I am currently in many dinner debts to him. I decided to try a couple of new things.

First, the Saturday Night Vidalia Onions (recipe cribbed from Paula Deen and the Food Network website). These are ridiculously easy. I couldn’t find Vidalias, so I used Walla Walla onions. Paula called for beef boullion cubes, which I didn’t have, but Jon did have Better Than Bouillon in his fridge, so I used a teaspoon of that instead. I thought that some roasted garlic might go well with the onions, so I tossed a clove in on top of the bouillon.

Results? Well, the garlic did not work at all. If I want roasted garlic next time, I’m just going to roast a head next to the onions. The BtB was perhaps a little too salty, but I don’t think that would go away if I used a cube instead. The broth was very tasty. The onion itself tasted a little… watery or something. Probably it was due to the use of Walla Wallas over Vidalias. I would probably make it again. Interesting to have an onion soup you eat with a knife.

The other dish that I made (which I have not posted a recipe for yet) was Oven-Fried Chicken. I used the recipe from The Best Recipe by the Cook’s Illustrated people. But there was a twist! In their recipe, they use melba toast crumbs. I used… Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese Nips. (lovelovelove) However, this in turn caused me some difficulties with the rest of the instructions in the recipe. Should I add salt, or will the Nips cover that? (Answer: Add salt.) Will the Nips alone provide enough flavor? (Answer: Not really.) My final analysis is that it needs work, but could be awesome. I will be trying this again. I’m not going to post a recipe until I feel that it is good enough.