In preparing for the drop in temperature, I planned to try out some new soup recipes. I looked though my Pinterest page to see what popped out and found a little gem for Cheeseburger Soup. Sounded like a winner! I had best laid plans to do this early in the week...and then this week happened. I've been having some killer headaches with this little bun in the oven and this week they were in full swing. So, we lived off leftovers and pizza for the better part of the week, but by Friday I was ready to go! Of course, Friday was the first day the sun came out and the temperature went up. Oh well...soup I was craving and soup we would have!
Still, I wanted a little something more to go with the soup. And what goes better with soup than bread? The hubs LOVES bread and reminds me often that we don't have it at dinner enough. Since it had been quite some time since I made fresh bread, I was excited to try out a new recipe there as well. My biggest craving with this pregnancy, strangely enough, has been beer. So when I came across a recipe for Basil Beer Bread, I was sold!
Some tips for recreating this meal. The soup is meant to be made in the crock pot. I started the soup in the crock pot...and then ran out of time for not starting soon enough...and switched it to a pot on the stove. This wasn't the best idea. Unless you are going to stand over the stove and stir this soup constantly, make sure you leave yourself the extra time to let the crock pot do the work for you!
In the end, the soup was pretty thick. I didn't mind this since I like a heartier soup anyway, but if you wanted it a little thinner, I would suggest doubling the chicken stock. Between the cheese and the hash browns, a lot of liquid is soaked up!
The bread is probably one of the simplest you will make...EVER! The recipe wasn't really specific about the type of beer to use, so I picked out a nutty ale at the grocery store. Here's the one I used:
The bread also called for fresh basil, which I thought I had, but turns out I was wrong. I substitutes about 2 T dried basil for the fresh and the flavor came though. I would love to experiment with this again to see if I can taste a difference by using fresh basil, but in a pinch dried will work beautifully!
Cheeseburger Soup - Serves 8-10 (I wish I could credit the person who originally pinned this, but the link was broken. Thankfully the ingredients were in the description!)
1 pound ground beef; browned and drained
2 pounds Velveeta; cut into cubes
2 pounds shredded hash browns (I used 2 packs of Simply Potatoes Hash Browns, one original and one Southwest style for a little kick)
1 pound bacon; cooked, drained and crumbled
30 ounces chicken broth (more for a thinner soup)
1 T each dried basil, garlic, pepper, salt, tarragon and thyme
1 - Make sure beef is browned ad drained and bacon is cooked, drained and crumbled. Throw all ingredients in a crock pot and cook over high for 2-4 hours or low for 4-6 hours, stirring every now and then to mix everything up. Easy as that!
Basil Beer Bread - Makes 1 loaf, size of the average meatloaf pan (Adapted from Drizzle and Dip)
3 cups AP flour
1 bunch of fresh basil; chopped (or 2 T dried basil)
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 T brown sugar
330mL beer; room temperature
1 - Using a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, mix the dry ingredients together. Add beer and mix on low speed for 3-5 minutes until the dough bounces back when you press it.
2 - Grease a meatloaf pan. Add the dough and press down so the dough covers the pan evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes until lightly browned. Allow to cool slightly before slicing and eating.
On a side note, the wonderful hubs found my camera battery charger! No more phone pics for this girl!!
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