Beer Cheese Soup and Some News

Beer Cheese Soup.  This is a soup I made for an Advent potluck at church last month.  We did themes each week: Italian, German, Asian, and Mexican.  I made Beer Cheese Soup for the German potluck.  It's really good with a hearty pretzel roll.  I got the recipe from America's Test Kitchen.


Beer Cheese Soup

Ingredients:
4 tbsp butter
½ large onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped (or 1 cup matchstick carrots)
2 garlic cloves, minced
⅓ cup flour
1¾ cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 (12 oz.) beer, Miller High Life or Beck’s
2 cups whole milk
3 cups (12 oz.) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup (4 oz.) American cheese, shredded
2 tsp cornstarch
Salt and pepper

Directions:
Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Cook onion and carrots until softened, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour and cook until golden, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in broth, beer, and milk. Bring mixture to simmer, then reduce heat to low and simmer gently (do not boil) until carrots are very soft, 20 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, toss shredded cheeses and cornstarch in large bowl until well combined. Puree soup in blender in two batches (or using an immersion blender) until completely smooth, return to pot, and simmer over medium-low heat. Whisk in cheese mixture, one handful at a time, until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Serve. (Soup can be refrigerated in an airtight container for 3 days.)

Really good served with pretzel rolls.

Makes 6 servings.

Note: Don't use pre-shredded cheeses. Buy the American cheese at the deli counter, in a solid piece. Freeze it for 15 minutes before shredding for best results. 

This soup is really tasty!  I thought the beer might be too much for me as I don't care for it, but it wasn't overpowering at all.  It was just noticeable.  America's Test Kitchen recommended using Miller High Life, but I couldn't find it at Meijer. Instead, I looked for a German beer and used Beck's. That worked nicely.  The blend of cheeses is perfect.  ATK topped theirs with popcorn, but I served mine with a pretzel roll.

The reason I am sharing this recipe with you today is because it fits in perfectly with some news I have to share.  I am moving to the Land of Beer and Cheese: Wisconsin!  My husband took a call to be pastor of a church in Kenosha, so we are moving there very shortly.  We are really going to miss all the great friends we made here in Michigan, but are excited for our new adventure.  Kenosha seems like a really nice city.  And there's a Penzey's store there. :)

We are moving in less than a month (yikes!), so you won't be seeing much from me for a little while.  I still hope to participate in this month's Improv Challenge on the 17th and next month's Secret Recipe Club on the 4th.  But other than that my blog will be pretty quiet in January and February.  I hope to be back in the swing of things, cooking in my new kitchen and back to blogging in March.

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Secret Recipe Club: Spicy Sweet Squash and Quinoa Bowl

It's finally time for Secret Recipe Club again!  The club took a break during the month of December since it's such a busy time.  But it's great to be back.  I've been waiting for a really long time to share this awesome recipe with you!

The Secret Recipe Club is a group of food bloggers who secretly make one of someone else's dishes and post them all on the same day at the same time.  It's really fun, choosing a recipe to make, making the recipe, then reading about everyone else's recipes.  It's a great way to "meet" other bloggers and check out some great blogs that you never knew about before.

This month I was assigned a blog I was quite familiar with: The Cookin' Chemist.  I've had it on my blog reader for quite some time now.  It's written by Tessa, who is not only a great cook, but also a pharmacist.  Neat!

Tessa has some really great recipes on her blog.  A few I bookmarked were her Spicy Orange Chicken with Apricot Dipping Sauce, Hearty Chicken Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Quinoa, and her Crockpot Cheddar Beer Chicken Tacos. (Anything beer and cheese-related is getting my attention lately. Come back to tomorrow to see why.)  But the recipe that I couldn't wait to try the most was her Spicy Sweet Squash Bowl.  It sounded amazing.  I love roasted butternut squash and have been experimenting more with quinoa, so it was right up my alley.  I changed it just slightly; here's my adaptation.

Spicy Sweet Squash and Quinoa Bowl

Ingredients:

1 medium-large squash, peeled and cubed

2 tbsp olive oil, divided

2 tsp sugar

6 tsp curry powder, divided

¼ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

2 cups quinoa

3¼ cups vegetable broth, divided

1 tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp ground  chipotle powder

1 cup baby spinach leaves, torn

1 (15 oz.) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 clove garlic

Fresh cilantro

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.

Coat the squash with olive oil, sugar, cinnamon, 2 tsp curry powder, and salt. Roast until fork tender, about 15-20 minutes depending on how large you cut the squash cubes.

Meanwhile, place quinoa in a medium saucepan with the 3 cups broth, 4 tsp curry powder, ground chipotle, and brown sugar. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for about 15 minutes until the liquid is completely absorbed. Stir in the spinach leaves and replace lid.  Let sit for a few minutes. Remove the lid and fluff with a fork.

For the white bean hummus, puree the cannellini beans, ¼ vegetable broth, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 clove garlic, and salt to taste.

To serve, divide the quinoa mixture between four bowls. Top with the roasted squash and finally with a dollop of white bean hummus. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro, if desired.

Makes 4-6 servings.

I'm always on the lookout for great meatless main dishes because I like to serve them at least once a week.  And I get bored easily, so I'm always needing new inspiration.  This did not disappoint!  I absolutely love the contrast of flavors and textures in this dish.  The spicy sweetness of the squash, the salty chewiness of the quinoa, and the garlicky creaminess of the white bean puree.  It was amazing!  It's been a whole month since I made this; I couldn't wait to share it with you! I made it on a weekend when my mom was visiting.  She had never had roasted butternut squash or quinoa, and she loved it too.

The changes I made were minimal.  I omitted the pecans in Tessa's recipe and I doubled the quinoa because we had way more squash than quinoa.  You might end up with more than you need, but I much prefer that. It makes a great lunch the next day.

Tessa, thank you so much for a great recipe that will work into regular rotation here from now on.  In fact, I think I'll have my husband stop by the store on his way home so we can have this for dinner tonight. :)

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Cowboy Beans with Smoked Sausage

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year's Eve.  Now it's back to reality.  And January.  Ugh, January.  My least favorite month of the year.  Did you start a new diet?  Or at least resolve to eat better?  I have to be honest, I hate winter so much that I tend to go in the complete opposite direction: comfort food.  Winter really gets me down, so there is no way I am making it through this month by eating salads.  Sorry to disappoint if you are looking for healthier fare, but I'll be sharing mostly comfort foods and soups this month.

One ingredient that pops up a lot when I am craving comfort food is beans.  I love beans.  This is a recipe I created when I set out to make another recipe but found I was missing some ingredients.  It's kind of like barbecued beans with smoked sausage.  Really good on cornbread.


Cowboy Beans with Smoked Sausage

Ingredients:
½ onion, sautéed
14-16 oz. pkg. smoked sausage, chopped
1 can butter beans, drained
1 can mild chili beans, w/sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
¼ cup barbecue sauce
¼ cup ranch dressing
Cornbread, if desired

Directions:
Sauté onion until soft.  Add smoked sausage and cook until browned.  Add all other ingredients and heat through.  Serve over warm cornbread.

Makes 4 servings.

I love this recipe not only because of how yummy it is, but because it takes just a few minutes to throw together.  Great for a busy weeknight.

While this is comfort food at its best, you can easily lighten this dish up a bit.  You can use turkey or chicken sausage which is lower in fat and calories than the original pork.  You can also use light ranch dressing and cut down on the brown sugar.

What are your favorite comfort foods?

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Jingle Bars

Okay, one more quick Christmas dessert before I take some time off for the holiday. These bars are amazing!  I saw them on The Freshman Cook, and couldn't wait to try them. They are very festive with their red and green colors, and they are some of the tastiest bars I've ever had. Let me map these out for you: graham cracker crust, topped with 2 bags of Heath toffee bits, slathered with sweetened condensed milk, and topped with holiday chocolate chips.  They are very rich and probably have a million calories each, so don't make them when you're home by yourself.  But if you do over-indulge on these a little, don't beat yourself up. It's Christmas!

Jingle Bars

Ingredients:

½ cup butter (1 stick), melted

1½ cups graham cracker crumbs

2 (8 oz.) bags Heath Bits O'Brickle Toffee Pieces

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

1 (10 oz.) bag Nestle Toll House Holiday Morsels

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.  Spray a 9x13” pan with baking spray.  Set aside.

Combine melted butter and graham cracker crumbs and press into the bottom of prepared baking dish.  Top with both bags of Heath toffee pieces.  Pour sweetened condensed milk over toffee pieces.  Smooth out with spoon to make sure it’s evenly distributed.  Sprinkle holiday chocolate chips on the top.  

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until set.  Let cool completely before cutting into bars.

Makes 20 bars.

So festive!  I only wish the holiday chocolate chips were all red and green, without the brown ones.  Would be even prettier.

If it's too late to make these for this Christmas, but you don't want to wait until next Christmas, no worries! Use regular chocolate chips and they are good to go for any time of the year.

I made these for a church potluck a couple of weeks ago.  They were a huge hit!  I sent some home with a family who was there for the church service, but not the meal beforehand.  The mom wrote on my Facebook wall the next day telling me how good they were, and the teenage boys went on and on about them at school the next day (my husband teaches there, so he heard it first-hand).  I think they liked them!

I had one other Christmas recipe to share with you, but it will have to wait until next year, as I am super busy getting ready for the holiday.  I probably won't be back until after New Year's, so I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

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Peppermint Chocolate Pudding Pie

Here's another fun Christmas dessert for you.  My absolute favorite Christmas flavor combination is peppermint and chocolate.  I'm the kind of purist who will only get a peppermint mocha at Starbucks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.  It's just so yummy and reminds me so much of the Christmas season (prob from my years working at Starbucks!), that I can't ruin it by having it at different times of the year.  I have seen so many peppermint and chocolate goodies floating around the blog world this season and I want to try all of them!  I'm going to have to rename my Christmas board on Pinterest to "Peppermint and Chocolate Recipes".  I saw a pudding pie from Pillsbury that I wanted to try.  It was double-layered with a layer of chocolate pudding on the bottom and some kind of marshmallow peppermint layer on the top.  It sounded good, but I wasn't sure about the marshmallow part.  That sounded kind of weird to me.  So I created my own top layer using white chocolate pudding instead.  I also used a graham cracker crust instead of a traditional pie crust.  Here's how I made mine.

Peppermint Chocolate Pudding Pie

Ingredients:

2¼ cups milk, divided

1 box (4 serving size) cook and serve chocolate pudding mix (not instant)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 box (4 serving size) instant white chocolate pudding mix

¼ tsp peppermint extract.

1 cup Cool Whip

1½ tsp peppermint sugar or red sprinkles, optional

1 chocolate graham cracker crust

1 candy cane, crushed

Directions:

In a 2 qt. saucepan, stir together the 1¼ cups milk and chocolate pudding mix.  Cook over medium heat as directed on box.  Reduce heat to low; continue cooking while adding chocolate chips, stirring until melted.  Set aside.

Combine the remaining 1 cup milk and white chocolate pudding mix.  Whisk until thick.  Add peppermint extract and Cool Whip.  You can also add sprinkles if desired, but be aware that the color will bleed and it will end up pink instead of white with red specks.

Spread chocolate pudding in the bottom of the graham cracker crust.  Top with white chocolate/peppermint pudding.  Cover and refrigerate until set, about 4 hours.  Just before serving, sprinkle the crushed candy cane over the top.  Cut into 8 wedges and serve.  Store leftovers covered in refrigerator (crushed candy cane will kind of melt into the top, but it’s still good!).

Makes 8 servings.

Isn't it pretty?  This is what it looks like when you first put the crushed candy cane on top.  I did that before I refrigerated it and was surprised to see that the candy cane pieces had melted into the top when I got it out of the fridge.  That's why it looks pink in the top picture.  No worries; it was still delicious!

 I stirred some of these peppermint sprinkles into the white chocolate part and they also melted and turned the filling pink.  Again, didn't matter to us!

This pie is so good!  I love pudding pies, and these two puddings together are amazing.  I love the combination of the chocolate and peppermint.  Perfection!  This is an easy pie to make for your Christmas dinner as long as you have a few hours to chill it before serving.

I have two more Christmas recipes to share with you, but I'm running out of time!  Maybe now that I have my Christmas shopping done I will be able to get those up before the big day.

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Improv Challenge: Jingle Bell Cookie Pizza

Sorry I have been MIA lately.  December is just so busy, and then life threw us a curveball that took us out of town for a few days. But today is the Improv Challenge, and I wasn't about to miss that!

The premise of the Improv Challenge is easy: each month there are two assigned ingredients.  The participants must make a recipe using both ingredients and blog about it.

This month's assigned ingredients were chocolate and marshmallows.  I hope you weren't expecting some crazy savory dish, because there are so many fun Christmas desserts out there right now and I want to try them all!  I saw this Jingle Bell Cookie Pizza in an email from Pillsbury, and thought it would be perfect for this month's challenge.  

Jingle Bell Cookie Pizza

Ingredients:

1 roll (16.5 oz.) refrigerated chocolate chip cookies

1½ cups miniature marshmallows

½ cup red and green M&Ms

½ cup hot fudge topping, heated, if desired

Directions:

Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 12” inch pizza pan with shortening, or spray with cooking spray. 

On pan, break up cookie dough into pieces and press out dough evenly on bottom of pan to form crust. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until light golden brown.

Sprinkle marshmallows and candies evenly over crust. Bake 2 to 3 minutes longer or until marshmallows are puffed. Drizzle hot fudge topping over top. Cool completely, about 1 hour. Cut into 16 wedges to serve.

Makes 16 servings.

This is such a great holiday dessert because it's so easy and quick to make, but is really fun and festive.  I made it the weekend my mom was up visiting and we all really liked it.  I'm not a big marshmallow fan, but they work really well on this pizza with the M&Ms.

I just love the red and green colors on this dessert.  But you could easily use different colors for different holidays.  I'm thinking the Easter M&Ms would be really fun.  And you could use Reese's Pieces for fall colors at Thanksgiving.

 Gotta love chocolate on top of chocolate on top of chocolate!

 If you need a quick dessert for a small party, give this one a try.  And be sure to check out all of the other chocolate and marshmallow recipes below.  Next month's challenge is bananas and nutmeg; yum!

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Sesame Garlic Green Beans

I thought I would give you a little break from all the Christmas desserts you've no doubt been seeing en masse lately. Not that there's anything wrong with Christmas desserts; I have a few to share with you too, but those will have to wait for another day because today I've got veggies on the brain.  This is a super simple, but really tasty, green bean recipe I came up with this summer.  Goes really well with Asian dishes.


Sesame Garlic Green Beans

Ingredients:
12 oz. fresh green beans, trimmed
2 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, grated
1 tbsp sesame seeds
Salt, to taste

Directions:
Boil or steam green beans until desired tenderness.  Drain well.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  Add the garlic and sesame seeds and toast, stirring frequently, until garlic is fragrant and seeds are lightly toasted.  Add green beans and stir to evenly coat them with the garlic and sesame seeds.  Warning: sesame seeds may pop and hop around!

Season with salt to taste.

Makes 4 servings.

I use the Pampered Chef Microcooker to cook my green beans in the microwave.  I trim them, throw them in there, cover with water, season with salt, cover, and microwave.  I like my green beans on the very tender side (but never mushy!), so I cook mine for about 11-12 minutes.  Most people like theirs less done than that, so start with 5-8 minutes and check on them.

These beans make a very pretty side dish.  Since I like my beans tender, I love the little bits of crunch that the sesame seeds give.  So good.  My kids really liked these too.

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Lazy Baker Sugar Cookies

It's the 7th day of the month, which means it's Crazy Cooking Challenge time. 

 This month's theme was sugar cookies.  I wasn't too excited about this because baking isn't my thing, and cookies are my least favorite thing to bake even when I do feel like baking.  And Christmas sugar cookies are the worst kind of cookies because you have to make the dough, refrigerate it for so long, then roll it out with a rolling pin, and cut out all the shapes, blah, blah, blah. I am far too lazy for all that!  I have a serious aversion to any recipe that calls for a rolling pin.  If I read a recipe that I'm interested in and I come across a sentence that starts with, "Roll out. . . "  I immediately move on.  I still wanted to participate this month though, so I started looking through all kinds of sugar cookie recipes for a "cheaters" version.  I found it at Lulu The Baker.  She calls them "No Chill, No Roll Sugar Cookies".  Sounded good to me!  And they looked cute and could still be easily decorated, so that was the recipe for me.  I got the frosting recipe from her too.  I'm calling them "Lazy Baker Sugar Cookies."  I had never done the whole baking-sugar-cookies-and-decorating-them thing with my two girls, so we made an afternoon of it.  

Lazy Baker Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

½ cup butter, softened

½ cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

2½ cups flour

¾ tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. 

In a large bowl, cream butter, shortening, and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla and egg; mix. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Add dry ingredients to butter/sugar and combine. Add milk and stir until completely incorporated. 

Roll dough into tablespoon-sized balls and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until cookies are just beginning to turn golden on the edges. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

Frosting:

Combine 1 stick softened butter, 1 tsp vanilla, 4 cups powdered sugar, and 2-4 tbsp milk. Beat until fluffy.  Add food coloring as desired.

Makes 3½ dozen (2”) cookies.

The only change I made to the cookie recipe was that I changed ½ tsp baking soda to 1 tsp baking powder because I went to put in the baking soda and found I was out. Whoops!  My husband was working and there was no way I was dragging my two kids to the store just for that, so I tried using the baking powder instead, and they came out perfectly.  I know that baking powder isn't a substitute for baking soda, but since it worked, I'm going with it!

I love how the cookies turned out.  Perfectly round, soft, but not so soft that they fell apart.  I used my Pampered Chef stoneware and they were perfectly cooked without browning at all.  

Here are the pics of my two little girls helping me make these cookies.  Lena (4 and a half) in the blue shirt, and Eva (2 and a half) in the pink.

Eva helping me mix the dough.  

Lena's turn.

Eva is the type who does not like anything on her hands.  After she rolled her first cookie, she waved her hands in my face, saying "dirty, dirty, dirty!"  She wanted me to wash them in between each cookie roll.

Can you tell which ones I rolled, which ones Lena rolled, and which ones Eva "rolled"?

I set up four different colors of frosting: white, red, green, and brown.  The brown was for the little reindeer kit I got.  I used food coloring to make the brown, then afterwards it hit me that I should have just used cocoa powder.  Duh!

The reindeer kit.  I think our cookies were a bit small for it, but oh well.

Waiting patiently to begin.

Eva and her first cookie.

Cute, and tastes good too!

Sampling the artwork.

My reindeer cookie.  I used chocolate sprinkles to make it look furry.

Lena and her reindeer cookie.

This is how a 2-year-old does sprinkles.

My husband jumped in after he was done working and made a couple too.  He made the wreath at the top.  I made the Christmas tree, the red bow on green background, and the white with red swirls.  Eva's are the ones with bites out of them.

The prettiest ones.  

The red sprinkles were cinnamon-flavored and the red-and-white ones were peppermint-flavored.

Here are all of the ones that we made.  Lena made all of the ones with mounds of blue sprinkles, because blue is her favorite color.

The mess we created.  Holy moly!  My lovely husband offered to do clean-up.  What a saint!

I had lots of fun making these cookies with my kids.  This will definitely be my go-to recipe for sugar cookies from now on.  

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