There’s a number of meals where onions are either added near the beginning to help create a flavor base or near the end as another layer or raw taste to tingle your senses. Whichever the case, the onion can be a great addition to anybody’s meal. I have decided to start my personal food project with this humble vegetable who’s history (as I’ve been reading) in regards to origin is….unknown. Both location of first discovery and date. It is a hearty vegetable, can be grown in any type of soil and varied climate changes. Easy to grow, to transport and less likely to perish within a week or two. It’s an easy food product to cook with and comes in a variety of shapes and colours. Purple, yellow, white…. Small to medium to large. The weirdest shape I think to work with is the Chipolini onion. It’s on the smaller size, but more of a disk-like shape. I found it challenging to peel as I had quite a bit of leftover after it was photographed. Trying to figure out what to do with all the onions I now had. So, I decided to make caramelized onions. Made a large batch of it and froze majority of it. Want to know what you can do with caramelized onions other than a garnish? Well, planning on making a stew? I’d suggest adding a bit of the caramelized onions in the middle portion of the cooking time. Soooooo delicious!! It just adds this extra bit of sweetness, yet tartness to the dish as a complimentary taste rather than it overpowering the stew and giving it a level of richness that you wouldn’t think could be created. Experiment. Be open to it and just try it. I promise that you’re going to like it! Benefits: Onions contain quercetin, also known as flavonoid. It’s a type of antioxidant. Basically it’s a type of fountain of youth. Forget ambrosia, stuff your faces with onions! Joking, just don’t ignore this hearty and flavour filled vegetable that is really easy to incorporate into your already established cooking habits. There are, of course, other benefits to the onion as it also contains vitamin C, folic acid and a good source of dietary fiber. Interesting fact: Highest concentration of flavonoid is closer to the top most layer of the onion. So, when you’re peeling your onion, be mindful of how much you’re peeling away. It also just helps produce less waste. Fun Fact: Egyptians (not sure if they still do now, but certainly recorded in history) were know to worship onions. It symbolized Eternity to them and were known to bury onions along with Pharaohs. What they saw was eternal life. Where did they see it? In the anatomy of the onion. All the circle within a circle. Like you see in the cross section of a tree trunk.