Last night I made cheese soup. Wanted to use up the last hunk of homemade beer cheese that didn't turn out right. I used a Belgian Golden Strong Ale in the cheese, and the Belgian funk was too strong. Plus the cheese started to mold under the wax.
Anyway, here's the recipe:
1/2 stick butter in pot
Chop 1 medium/large sweet onion, add to the butter, then add diced garlic (or powdered if you don't happen to have any fresh on hand..) and sautee until caramelized
Add chicken bouillon and heaping spoonful of flour and stir well to break up the bouillon. Add a bit of water until the flour and water make a thick and smooth paste.
Add grated cheese (roughly 1 lb. I think) and stir until cheese is melted and integrated. Add rest of 4 cups of water.
Add chopped ham, or whatever kind of ham you want to use.
Chop jalepenos and add to the soup and let it simer as long as you can stand it.
Add a cup of cream or however much you want and heat it back up and serve.
I added a small amount of salt to the onions to help them loose their moisture, but with the cheese and ham, it's already plenty salty, so be careful!
I personally think some chopped broccoli would also go great in this, but we didn't have any.
What was suppose to be a meal just to use up some very iffy cheese turned out really good! I'm making more cheese, probably tomorrow, and I'm skipping the beer part. I may read up on adding stout, though. I've seen a stout cheese that looked really cool with the dark brown veins running through it.
