here comes the bride

people always talk about "the year all my friends got married;" this is mine. between may and october of this year, i will attend 7 weddings (that i know of so far). once upon a time, when a girl got married, it meant the beginning of her life as a personal chef. young women needed to learn quickly how to make a roast, whip mashed potatoes and bake a layer cake. because if you weren't any good in the sack at first, hey! maybe you could make up for it with a perfectly roast chicken. and perhaps, vice versa.

for my friends, mostly getting married at 30 or so, they are already cooks or not, and marriage certainly isn't going to change them. their fellas have already, um, tasted their roast chickens, and agreed to marry them, regardless. some of these fellas cook wayyyyyy better than my girlfriends. some of these couples live exclusively on takeout.

despite all this, bridal showers still occasionally include the old fashioned recipe exchange. just yesterday my friend who cooks nothing more complicated than a microwave dinner, emailed me frantically looking for a vegetarian recipe for a bridal shower she is going to. i whipped out an old classic, the miso onion recipe i stole from laurie a million moons ago.

it goes like this:

BAKED MISO ONIONS

4 cups quartered sweet spanish onions (3 medium onions)
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp barley miso or red miso
3 tbsp water ( i usually use closer to 4)
1 tsp dried thyme

preheat oven to 425 degrees
place onions in a baking pan
in a bowl stir togeher oil, miso, water and thyme and spoon/pour over onions
if this seems like not enough sauce (the more the better), make another half batch of sauce and pour it over also
cover and bake for 35 minutes or until onions are soft

these are pretty good right away but are significantly better after sitting in a tupperware overnight in the fridge, steeping in their own delicious miso juice. and i am pretty sure that one taste of these and your brand new husband will be very happy with the choice he made.