Saturday, January 02, 2010

Cheddar Cheese Soup

For about 12 years now, I've been making (semi) homemade cheese soup - a perfectly wonderful, rich, hot treat on a cold winter's evening. (And, trust me, it is cold out tonight. The temperature is around 2DC).

Each time I make my soup, I tweak it a little. Sometimes the recipe is elaborate, sometimes just simple. I've used vegetables from finely sliced carrots to rough chopped celery to diced red onion to sauteed mushrooms to broccoli. When I first started making cheese soup, I used to throw in fried bacon. Chopped chicken breast works well also.

Tonight, I kept it simple. Two cans cream of mushroom soup. 1 can of condensed milk (I prefer half-and-half, but, in a pinch...) Half a red onion, chopped, sauteed in sage butter. One bag frozen spinach leaves (thawed first, of course). Yellow mustard, Louisiana hot sauce, a loads of shredded sharp cheddar cheese. Oh... and one bottle of O'Doull's Amber.

Then I browned up some croutons for one top (sage butter and olive oil with Italian seasoning melted together, then torn pieces of leftover yeast rolls tossed in, coated and fried brown and just crisp).

It must have been a good batch. Austin ate all of his!

Next time, I may try to incorporate some goat cheese. That should give it a unique, sharp taste. I'll let you know how it goes.

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