Today's recipe is a caramelized onion and tomato soup topped with Gruyere cheese croutons. There's an optional splash of Sherry wine added to the mix and it's topped with chopped green onions.

Ingredients:
4 cups of onion
3 Tbs of butter
3 minced cloves of garlic
1 Tbs fresh chopped thyme
2 bay leaves
1 Tbs light brown sugar
2 15-ounce cans of diced tomatoes
2 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
Sliced Gruyere or swiss cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
(Optional) Sherry wine

Procedure:
You'll need a little patience for caramelizing the onions in this recipe. Put the halved and thinly sliced onion into the melted butter in a deep, heavy-bottomed pot on medium to medium-high heat. Stir those around once in a while.

Let the onions soften up for about 10 minutes and turning a golden brown. Then add the minced garlic, fresh chopped thyme and bay leaves and stir it all up.

Once the onions are nice and soft and golden brown, you can add the optional splash of sherry wine. Let that cook down and then the light brown sugar, diced tomatoes and either the vegetable or chicken stock and bring it up to a simmer for 10 minutes or so.

Next, remove the bay leaves and use a hand blender to carefully puree it, adding more stock if needed.

Season that with salt and pepper to taste and let it gently simmer along while you make the croutons.

Toast the first side of the croutons underneath the broiler and then flip them over, top the second side with sliced Gruyere or swiss cheese and place the tray back underneath the broiler to melt the cheese.