Ale and Cheddar Soup

I bought some pretty good bread for that stew I made last week that turned out utterly crap. Since I hadn't turned in into grilled cheese sandwiches, I figured I should make something this week that would go with it.

Ale and cheddar soup it would be.

I had trepidations about this soup. It sounded really good, but it seems I always do horrible things to cheese soup. So I resolved to follow the directions closely to minimize my chances of screwing it up.

And then I read the recipe. Kind of.

Doesn't it look good?

First thing I noticed was the it says, "A bottle of ale." Have you any idea how many different sizes there are for a bottle of ale? I mean, seriously. I went to the Party Source's website to see if there was a standard size bottle. Um, no. I found so many different sizes of bottles, it'll make your head spin. And that doesn't even count growlers. I have no idea how many fluid ounces are in a growler.

I had a heck of a time picking out a beer when I went grocery shopping. I finally bought Mt. Carmel Brewing Company's amber ale. It's not a beer I've ever had, but I'm all for patronizing local businesses. And I KNOW I don't like India Pale Ales, so I avoided them. When I saw Mt. Carmel had an amber ale, I wondered if Amber Bock was an ale. No, it's a bock/lager, silly. And while it might have turned out just fine, I didn't want to take the chance.

I couldn't really do anything ahead of time, so I got home, put the bacon in the oven to bake (because I always burn myself frying it), and then took the trash out. I used about half good bacon (I had a coupon for a brand I don't remember now, but I think it was called something blue?) and half mediocre bacon. I mean, I like using the good stuff, although I don't care for the price, and I was putting it in soup. How much are you actually going to notice the difference?

Of course, I come back in and started cutting up vegetables, and then read the directions again.

I was supposed to cut up the bacon into 1-inch strips.

Which I didn't do.

So much for reading the recipe.

I kept cutting vegetables. I tried to get everything as small as I could so it would cook down to nearly nothing. I only used two jalapenos (which I seeded and de-ribbed) because I didn't want the soup too spicy.

I added everything in the correct order. I pulled the thyme leaves off the stems I had instead of shopping them up because who wants to eat stems? I eyeballed that amount. De-leafing a thyme stem is time consuming.

I took the slices of cooked bacon and cut them up into the required 1-inch pieces and added them when directed. So that part didn't turn out so bad, at least. And the bacon was really tasty.

I was worried about things sticking to the bottom of the pan despite the bacon grease I cooked the veggies in, so I just kept stirring.

I only used one bottle of the ale. And I kept stirring.

I used partially pre-grated cheese (because I had it) and partially cheese I grated myself (because that tastes better). And I kept stirring.

I added plenty of salt at the end because the soup actually tasted a little sweet. I have no idea how much salt, pepper or cayenne I added. It said to taste, so I tasted. And kept stirring.

My soup, with the beer.

In the end, the soup was very tasty. I was glad I had bread and salad, because although the recipe says it's four servings, it's four small servings. Everyone liked it, and no one's taste buds were burnt out (as far as I was told).

Now I need to figure out what to do with the rest of that heavy cream...

Conclusion: 12 ounces is probably enough ale. Next time, try white cheedar? And more bacon, less celery.