Last Night's Dinner: Beer Cheese Soup

I'm really liking this new resolution I added: try one new recipe a week. It's really allowing me to find great flavors and healthy meals to make. It's so easy to fall back on our familiar staples but that gets so boring! Trying new recipies means making new meals our staples :) win win!

But to be realistic, I do always have a frozen pizza in the freezer just in case my meal doesn't pan out right ;)

Last night's dinner  was something helloboyfriend requested. I've never had beer cheese soup before, but we went to lunch at Granite City for my birthday a while back and had their beer cheese dip, which reminded hbf of beer cheese soup!

and Ta-Da, I added it to the menu for the week!

Beer Cheese Soup (adapted from this)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups diced carrots


• 1 1/2 cups diced onion


• 1 1/2 cups diced celery


• 2 cloves garlic, minced


• 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce


• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper


• 2 cups chicken broth


• 3 cups beer


• 1/3 cup butter


• 1/2 cup flour (with extra to thicken)


• 4 cups half and half


• 6 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese


• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce


• 1 teaspoon dry mustard

Directions:

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, sweat carrots, onion, celery, and garlic in butter. About 10 mins.

2. Stir in hot pepper sauce, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper.

3. With a whisk, start adding flour to the mixture to create a flour-vegtable roux. Stir until flour is light brown, about 3-4 mins.

4. Gradually stir in half and half, continually whisking. Once all added, remove from heat.



5. Stir in cheese slowly and always whisking.





6. Put pot back on heat, add chicken broth and beer. Don’t add the beer to quickly since it will foam.

Yum, Grain Belt Beer is a Minnesota brewed beer and Nordeast is a delicious amber American Lager that is a MN fav. If you ever get your hands on some, try it.

See the foaming bubbles!?

7. Add Worcestershire sauce and dry mustard.

8. Simmer for 10 minutes. Serve warm.

I paired the soup with soft pretzels.

I really wanted to make my own pretzels, but these are so easy and cheap that I decided to settle and buy from frozen. Plus they only take 4 mins in the oven and are a kinda-healthy snack (at 160 calories) if you're looking for something salty.

Verdict: The soup was deeelish! I made a big pot of it and one big perk is that it is definitely freezable. After dinner, I portioned it out into lunch-size servings and froze a bunch individually so I could bring it to lunch on those cold winter days.

In other news, I'm debating whether or not I want to add some style files/fashion section to this blog. One thing I worry about is my 9-5 job outfits are pretty boring. and with early morning wake-ups (5 am!) and my long commute to work (1 1/2 hours), I don't really get to play dress up. Personally, I don't think I have a total sense of my personal style but I think seeing it evolve over time would help me decide. Plus, I love reading fashion blogs to help me find my sense of style -- why not partake?

I'm going to be adding some blog roll listings on the side so stay tuned!

Cheers,

Natalie