Canning - Sweet Caramelized Onions

At the Fortinos yesterday, I picked up five 10 lb bags of beets, one 10 lb bag of carrots, and one 10lb bag of onions. They were $1.88 each. I couldn't resist. Yesterday I pickled a bag of beets. I also started a recipe for Sweet Caramelized Onions (Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications Canning 2013, page 79). It requires that you slow cook sliced onions for 8 hours, so I set it up after dinner. I thought I'd perhaps have to get up in the middle of the night to turn them off. But when I checked at some ungodly hour, they were just fine, cooking along. By the time I got up this morning, they'd been in the slow cooker for 11 hours.

But I decided they still weren't brown enough, so I added another four hours onto the slow cooker. Turns out that I was busy with other things until later that afternoon, so all told, the onions cooked for 18 or 19 hours. At the end, they looked like this:

My recipe ended out as follows:

4-5 lbs cooking onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

6 tablespoons butter, melted

6 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1/3 cup apple cider

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons crushed red pepper

I cooked the onions, butter and oil in Ma Stewart's slow cooker for 18 hours. Then I put the onions, brown sugar, vinegar, cider, salt, and crushed red pepper into a pot and cooked uncovered at medium heat for just over 25 minutes. I think I let it go just a bit too long, because in the last 5 minutes of cooking, I cooked away much of the juices. I then packed it into four small widemouth jars - almost five lbs of sliced onions fit in four half pint jars!  I was pleased with a quick taste test, but I think I'll have to try it when my whole house isn't redolent with the scent of onions. 

Jars Filled Today: 4   Total Jars Filled: 30    Number of Jars Remaining: 176