Slow Cooker Potato, Beer, Bacon and Cheese Soup

 The time has come for soup weather. It's been hovering around freezing for a couple weeks now, so we're dragging out soup recipes and coming up with new ones. This recipe came about because we had a bag of potatoes that had all sorts of exciting things growing off of them and were close to achieving sentience. We found a slow cooker recipe for potato soup and quickly butchered it. The result was a gallon of tasty and filling soup. If you don't drink, it is still good without the beer. Or use non-alcoholic beer if that's an option. It's up to you. I'm not going to be checking on you to see if you followed the recipe exactly. Apologies for the pic, this soup does NOT photograph well. As always, notes are in blue.

Slow Cooker Potato, Beer, Bacon, and Cheese Soup
(looks much better in real life)

Ingredients

• 6 cups potatoes, cut into small cubes (I used russets, didn't peel them, and cut them into about 1/4" squares)
• 2 cups minced onion
• 1/2 cup carrots, cut into thin slices
• 1/2 pound bacon (feel free to leave it out if you don't do meat)
• 1 can (10.5 ounces) cream of broccoli soup (you could certainly use just about any cream soup here, though cream of potato might be overkill)
• 5 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you're not into meat)
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon Taylor Street Seasoning from Spice House (I know many of you won't have this, or don't want to order it. That's fine. You can just add garlic, Romano cheese, and basil to taste.)
• 1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
• 1 cup dark beer (I used Budweiser Black Lager. Pick your favorite. Use non-alcoholic if you prefer. Or leave it out if you don't drink. I imagine you could through a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce in there to get that deeper flavor)
• 4 ounces shredded cheddar cheese (about 1 cup)
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley

Directions

1. In a pan, cook bacon until crisp. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large (6 quart) slow-cooker, add the potato, onion, carrot, bacon, soup, stock, pepper and seasonings. 
3. Set the cooker to HIGH for about 6.5 hours. Stir once about halfway through the time.
4. After the 6.5 hours, stir in the evaporated milk, beer, cheese, and parsley. Leave on HIGH and cook another 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.

Good times!

Slow Cooker Mexican Style Beer and Cheese Soup

Holy cow does having a child eat into your time. Nobody warned me about that. Okay, everybody warned me about that. It's a good thing she's beautiful and hilarious, so I don't mind. One of the big things I've learned in the last year or so is to find meals that can be prepared in a hurry or require very little maintenance. During the winter months, that means I'm leaning heavily on the slow cooker. The Wife was recently after me to make some beer and cheese soup. I have a recipe and it's pretty good, but wanted something that would work well with the absolutely vile pumpkin beer I had in the fridge. I found it! The beer flavor really works quite well and the soup has a nice bite to it from the peppers. This is a great cold-weather soup. We are definitely making it again. As a bonus, at the bottom of this post, you'll find the link to the YouTube video of the recipe. As always, notes are in blue.

Slow Cooker Mexican Style
Beer and Cheese Soup
(that absolutely does not photograph well)

Ingredients

• 1-1/4 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 can (10.75 oz) cheddar cheese soup (if you can find nacho cheese soup, that would probably be even better)
• 1 can (10 oz) diced tomato and peppers
• 1 can (15.5 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can (14.75 oz) creamed corn
• 1 can (12 oz) Harvest Patch Shandy (Leinenkugel) beer. (if you can't find it, any pumpkin beer will do. If you can't find pumpkin beer, or despise all things pumpkin, use any pilsner style beer (Old Style, etc). If you can't/won't use booze, just use an equal amount of water or beef stock)
• 1 envelope taco seasoning (about 1 oz)

Directions

1. In a pan, brown ground beef along with the chopped onions. Drain off excess grease and then stir in taco seasoning (into the meat and onion mix, not the drained grease because that would be dumb)
2. Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker. (we used a 3 quart and it was close. I suggest at least a 4 quart cooker). Cook on HIGH about 4 hours.

BONUS VIDEO

Good Times!

Slow Cooker Pork Loin and Sweet Potatoes in Beer and Tomato Preserves

     You can never go wrong with pork loin for $1.49 a pound. I wound up buying about 25 pounds. This is super handy because you throw a two or three pound hunk in a slow cooker and magic happens. I had been considering using some surplus tomato preserves with a pork loin for a while now. I figured the sweet onions and sweet potatoes would work nicely with the preserves and they do! I like to just mash the potatoes in with the meat and start shoveling it in. Granted, I have no manners or class. As always, notes are in blue.

Slow Cooker Pork Loin and Sweet Potatoes
in Beer and Tomato Preserves

Ingredients

• 2-3 pound pork loin
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" cubes
• 1 large sweet onion, quartered
• 1 can beer (I used Old Style)
• 1/2 pint tomato preserves (we made our own. If you need a recipe, give this one a try )

Directions

1. Load pork loin in 5-6 quart slow cooker. 
2. Arrange potatoes and onions around loin.
3. Pour in beer. Pour preserves over the loin.
4. Cook on LOW for 7 hours (the potatoes will be a bit mushy. If you like them a little more firm, wait a couple hours before you add them to the cooker)

Good Times!

Caribbean-Style Pork, Zucchini and Apples

     I was a bit surprised at how positive the response was to this when I posted it to my Facebook page. This recipe came about simply because we were looking for a quick and easy way to burn through some more zucchini. I found the original in Pol Martin's Supreme Cuisine. The recipe was simple, but seemed like it would be lacking in the taste department. It struck me that the sweetness of the apples would play well with the She Simmers sauce I posted recently. I got a little aggressive with the sauce and used 3 tablespoons of it in the recipe. It was right on the edge of too hot for the wife, but she powered through it. The play of the spices in the sauce with the sweetness of the apples is great. The zucchini basically just sits in there and soaks up flavor. This would do well over a bed of rice or with some crusty bread. I imagine a nice bottle of Red Stripe beer would work well, too! As always, the original recipe is posted in its entirety with any changes or notes in blue.

Caribbean-Style Pork, Zucchini and Apples
formerly Pork Sauteed with Zucchini
via Pol Martin's Supreme Cuisine

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced (I cut those pieces in half again. I like smaller pieces of zucchini)
• 2 celery stalks, sliced 
• 2 apples, cored, peeled and sliced in wedges (the recipe doesn't specifically mention the type of apple, but I think sweeter is better for what we're doing here)
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
• 8 pork cutlets, trimmed of fat and cut in strips (we used 5 boneless chops; about 1.5 pounds. Sliced pork loin would work and a pack of pork tenderloins would be good, too)
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
• salt, pepper, paprika
• 2-3 tablespoons She Simmers or other Carribean-style hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water

Directions

1. Heat half of oil in frying pan over high heat. Add vegetables, apples and garlic; season well (nothing like a vague recipe instruction. "Season well?" Do they mean don't make a mess? I don't cook that way, so I assumed they meant use a heavy hand. I don't do that with salt, so I used maybe 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper and 1/2 teaspoon paprika) Cook 3 minutes.

   

   One of these days I'll remember to not overfill the pan.

2. Turn vegetables over and continue cooking 3 minutes over medium heat. Remove vegetables and apples from pan and set aside.
3. Heat remaining oil in pan over medium heat. Add meat and cook 2 minutes on each side (I may have gone a little longer since I like a bit of a sear on my meat). Season with salt and pepper (I didn't put any salt in with the meat, but I did add a little more cracked pepper and another 1/2 teaspoon paprika.)
4. Return vegetables and apples to pan with pork. Add parsley, season lightly with paprika (here's where I changed things up. I left out this last bit of paprika and dropped in 3 tablespoons of the hot sauce. You may want to use less if you are feeble. Also, this recipe produces a fair amount of water from the apples and veggies. I made a corn starch slurry and mixed it in at the end. It thickened the water into a nice sauce). Cook 2 minutes to reheat, serve.
5. Accompany with boiled new potatoes (I did no such thing) 

No new potatoes were available, but I did have a couple old ones I baked!
Good Times!

Hosting Large Parties

    In the last year, I decided it would be a great idea to start hosting large parties at my house. This was largely due to a misplaced sense of laziness. I figured if I hosted the party, I could drink with impunity and didn't have far to go to get to my bed. I completely miscalculated. Hosting a party is a, as a previous student of mine used to refer to it, "metric fuck-ton" of work. Where did I go wrong? After a couple more attempts, I figured out what to do to keep the workload to a minimum but still make sure everyone has a good time.

Don't Try To Do Everything Yourself
This is where I went wrong the first time around. I tried cooking enough for everyone, even though people were bringing food. I made labor intensive stuff, too. Far Breton, pan bangat, pizzas completely from scratch, egg rolls, crab rangoon, hot wings. I lose track. I got it all out and it was a hit, but I was exhausted and it ended up being too much food.

Now I keep the food simple. I stick with what's popular with my group. The triple slow cooker comes out and holds a couple of dips and a warmer for hot wings. I might make a pizza. Maybe do a chili bar. I know everybody who shows is generally bringing something, so now I just cook the favorites. I'm done trying to impress a large group.

Have Room In The Fridge
People are going to bring stuff that needs to be kept cold. With my group, it's usually cases of Bud Light, but there you go.

"I need you to make some space in the fridge."

If you're lucky, it will be cold outside and you can just leave the beer on the patio. If not, have coolers ready to go. You don't want stuff melting all over the counter.

Have Enough Ice

This is hugely important. Even if you have an ice-maker on your fridge, it's not going to be enough. Assume you'll need about a pound of ice per person attending. If there's a blizzard, you can always break icicles off the eaves and throw snow in cups. Just don't run out!

Have Enough Booze

I don't expect people to bring booze to my parties. Maybe beer, because I don't really keep it in the house. For a party, I will have at least a fifth of each of the following: rum (spiced and flavored), vodka (plain and at least one flavored), tequila (silver), bourbon (cheap), gin, and a couple liqueurs (Bols, Campari or something like that). I also make sure I have plenty of mixers. Sodas, vermouth (sweet and dry), grenadine, rose's lime juice, bitters, sour mix, etc. I also have a mini-kegerator that I'll load with a 5L mini-keg of some fun beer (usually Kostrizer or Oberon). 

Be prepared to grab car keys or arrange rides. My house has lots of futons, so I can have people crash there. Be responsible. People don't come back to your events if they get DUIs or die.

Realize No Matter How Much Entertainment You Have, Everybody Is Staying In The Kitchen

I had the poker table ready to go. I had the dartboard ready to go. I had the living and game rooms ready to go. Nobody left the kitchen/dining room. 

The fact that this is our dining room tends to keep people in the area.

I actually like it this way. It keeps the damage to a minimum.  Everybody stays in a big, loud group while they eat and drink. It warms the cockles of my heart. Even the sub-cockle region.

Accept That You're Not Going To Sit Down

This drives my wife batty. I don't sit while I'm entertaining. I'm on the move. I'm keeping platters full and empty plates moving toward the trash. I'm swapping out empty bottles and mixing cocktails. Clean as you go. You want to be able to just go to bed when everyone leaves.  I generally don't sit down until almost everyone has left. Then I sit and the alcohol I've been imbibing all night finally hits and I pass out at the table.

Good times!

ALDI

  
  It wasn't until I moved into my first apartment that I learned about ALDI. I had always done my grocery shopping at Jewel or Dominick's. My girlfriend (now my wife) informed me that I might do well to consider shopping at ALDI instead.

     If you just asked yourself "what in the world is ALDI?" then you are probably somewhere above the middle class.  For the uninitiated, ALDI is a very bare bones grocery store. Not bare bones in selection, bare bones in frippery. Cartons are more or less opened up and placed on shelves and racks. There are no baggers. There are no bags provided. You must either bring your own, buy them there, or scavenge empty cartons from around the store. You can't get a cart without a 25 cent deposit.

A bolt cutter will work, too.

     The stripped down nature of ALDI allows prices to be kept fairly low compared to other stores. On an average trip, about $60 will get us 40-60 items. Canned food is super cheap, as is frozen. Produce is generally hit or miss if you don't get it right as it's put out.  Almost everything is ALDI's house brand.  Occasionally, they carry actual name brands. We've found BocaBurgers and Pizzeria Uno frozen pizzas before, and at extremely good prices. ALDI also has a very nice meat and fancy cheese selection.

     If you're truly lucky, your ALDI will have a liquor section. This is wonderful because ALDI is based out of Germany. That means their house label beers are actually imported Germany and Holland. They also have a nice selection of wines and other lighter drinks. No hard liquor is available at ALDI, which is a complete shame because I would never have to shop anywhere else.

     The only downfall of ALDI is the propensity of their stores to be placed in sketchy locations. Sometimes you'll luck out and the store will be somewhere nice. Our current store at any time boasts a clientele similar to what you would find in a Wal-Mart at about 2:30 in the morning. You learn to make sacrifices for value.