Martha Monday: Sausage Stuffed Red Onions

Yours truly got to pick today's Martha Monday project.  I picked onions.  Sausage stuffed onions to be exact.  I've been enamored with onions lately.  It must be because my onion-hating husband is far off in Bahrain.  I've been eating raw onions, caramelized onions, sauteed onions, roasted onions.  YUM!  So, it was a given that I would pick these fabulous looking onions in the November issue of Living.  They looked so gooey and flavorful and bright.

Martha directs you to hollow out the onions which is not a pretty or easy process.  I used a spoon and an ice cream scoop to hollow mine out.  I was crying the whole time!  It's really hard to hollow out an onion with tears obstructing one's vision.  Let me tell you.  But, once that was accomplished I baked them in the oven for an hour.

Meanwhile, I made the stuffing which was pretty simple.  Sausage, fennel, grated apple sauteed.  Then mixed with Gruyere, parsley, sage, and bread crumbs.  Once the onions had baked for an hour, I stuffed them, topped them with cheese and bake them for another 20 minutes.  They came out looking bubbly and browned and yummy.

The verdict?  The stuffing was fabulous!  I'd use it again and in other dishes.  The stuffing was really the best part though.  I wanted the stuffing flavors to permeate the onion but they just didn't.  Once the stuffing was gone, all that was left was a big hunk of onion that didn't really have any alluring caramelization or stinging bite.  I'm wondering if cooking the onions longer would make them more meltingly tender and tasteful or perhaps cooking the stuffing in the onions longer . . . perhaps saving the cheese topping for the last few minutes of cooking.  I haven't given up on these onions yet.  They have so much potential  Any ideas?