Cooking with Winter Onions

As the winter weeks and months go by in Northern Michigan you can expect locally grown storage onions to become scarcer. But you will find them if you look in the right places, and they will store well enough under the appropriate conditions. Your community and natural-foods grocers will buy them from area farms as deep into winter as they can, but winter farmers’ markets have the longest seasonal availability. And the more you buy this year, the more you will find next year, because farmers pay sharp attention to demand for their wares.

Don’t hesitate to stock up on local onions when you see them, so long as you can keep your supply in a cold, dark and dry storage area. Choose onions that are firm and dry at the neck end. You may lose the occasional one but that’s how it goes, just keep an eye on them, and if any show signs of decay, use those ones first. Around March they will feel the seasonal urge to grow again, but they are still edible even as they begin to send out their roots and green shoots.

Onions are used to flavor many dishes but when featured as themselves they can bring powerful comfort to your winter meals. These two recipes feature large quantities of onion, sweetened by the process of cooking down at low temperature. Don’t wait too long! Buy your local onions early and enjoy them while the snow still flies.