Why I Love Onions

I love all kinds of onions. I like them young and green in the earliest part of the spring. I like them round and fat when they've been saved from an earlier garden.

Red ones.

Yellow ones.

White ones.

I even like those lame sweet ones from Vidalia, Georgia.

Cooked up with peppers and garlic, they are perfection. Baked with other veg in a slow oven, when they wear a light coat of olive oil and some kosher salt, they are the best part. Chunks baked into stuffing are more than acceptable.

But as the winter swoops down on the mountains, these are my two favorite ways to eat them. The first makes perfect sense and is an Appalachian favorite. After cooking a nice pot of beans--mmmm, pintos--I like onions chopped and diced and sprinkled all over the top of my bowl of beans. Corn bread on the side is handy, too.

Lately I've been making onions the way my mom used to to go on top of hot dogs. Only I don't have them on dogs. I plop them on top of scrambled eggs and sometimes I eat them rolled in a whole wheat tortilla.

And sometimes, I eat them with a spoon. Here it is, super simple, a little weird but good.

1 whole onion, diced
3-4 T mustard, whichever you prefer
2 T mayonnaise, either homemade or Duke's
Salt to taste, coarse salt is best

Stir it all up.

That's all.

How much do you love onions?

PS I also love garlic and ramps. Yum. Stinky foods.

And good for you, too.