onion brown sugar jam

Make this! It will take you minutes of actual work (then a few hours of sitting back and waiting), and your friends will be like 'why is this so delicious? I love this! I'm going to eat it straight from the jar!' What can you do with these delicious onions? Stir them into mac and cheese, spread them on a grilled cheese sandwich, serve them on a cheese plate, put them on pizza, or throw them into a salad. (My lovely friend Jessica served me a tasty salad with these onions, walnuts and goat cheese - yum!)

Caramelized onions are the simplest thing on earth to make, yet like most delicious things, they take quite a bit of time. Time where you just have to sit back and let the onions do the work, while you go and catch up on Jamie Oliver's new television show.

onion and brown sugar jam
This is really just a fancy name for caramelized onions, a recipe I found in Food and Drink, entitled 'brown sugar and onion marmelade.' I refuse to call it marmelade - marmalade is for citrus, period. I'll stick with the jam title though, because surprise (!), you can process them in jars and make them shelf stable.

1 tbsp olive oil
6 lbs onions
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt

Cut your peeled onions in half, then in slices, around 1/2 inch thick. Don't be too careful - it's all going to cook down into a large, delicious mess. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot, add the onions and stir for a minute. Add the brown sugar and vinegar, and stir to distribute. Leave on low heat, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes or so. The onions will collapse and cook down a lot. Finally, turn the heat up to medium high, and cook off most of the liquid, stirring often, for about 5 minutes.

You can freeze this, or keep it in the fridge for 3 or 4 weeks. Alternately, you can can them in half pint jars, using these instructions, processing for 30 minutes.