cooking together

one thing about being a new couple (especially with the time we have together being without jobs and out of school - it's a needed break) is that we spend a lot of time together and need things to do. one of our favorite things lately is to cook.

i've been cooking since i was a kid, my mother taught me a lot, and i always baked for every occassion during middle and grade school. i have always loved feeding people and have always believed that the way to a man's heart is his stomach - only i take it further - it's really to anyone's heart. you want people to love you - give them good food!

one of our FAVORITE meals to cook has been cheeseburger soup. i could give this a fancy name - the dish actually uses some damn nice ingredients - but we're from the midwest, we're simple people!!!

cheeseburger soup is essentially the canadian cheddar cheese soup from disney's le cellier steakhouse. i follow their recipe, with only a few differences.

at the beginning, with the bacon, i don't chop as finely as the disney chef does. instead, i cook the bacon through in the bottom of my stock pot, then take it out, and continue to cook the onion - i always use vidalia instead, i like the taste better with the sharp cheese. while my onions slowly cook to a good, soft, translucent state, i chop the bacon into smaller bits and get rid of the fat - if you are like me and jason, the fat in the bacon can be chewy and gross when you get bites of it, so i eliminate it!

i also skip the celery just because i'm not a fan of the texture it gave the dish. but everything else i follow pretty normally.

the big part of this dish is that *YOU NEED GOOD CHEESE*. seriously, i can't emphasize this enough. if you use kraft sharp cheddar, it's going to taste mediocre and you just won't be as happy. our favorite cheese to use with this is collier's welsh cheddar. it works really, really well. sometimes, if i am low on cheese, i throw in a bit of sargento's vermont white cheddar if i have it on hand, but i never use too much. the other cheese we have used that made a really great soup was an aged goat cheddar. it made a great, sharp soup.

i usually use light beers, a miller of sorts simply because my grandfather worked for miller and it's almost embedded into me to use/buy it. i'm not a fan of ales/lagers truly, but they work best in this, so usually it's whatever is in the fridge from a party or something.

so...that's just the soup. to make the cheessburger part, i create a topping that you can mix it. it makes the soup better for reheating and keeps the meat from getting soggy. i use ground turkey 93/7, but a lean beef will work just as well.

take 1/2 pound of meat and put in in a bowl. use around the following measurements for the seasoning, and mix well (with your hands - how i do it)
1 tbsp worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp seasoning salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp paprika
now - you may want to use more or less of things depending. i usually do it by "feel", which is just me being confident or cocky, i'm not sure which. blend those spices into your meat, and put the spiced meat into a frying pan, i use a 10inch non-stick frying pan.
with heat on medium, fry up the meat, almost as you would tacos, chopping it with your spoons so that it doesn't form patties. when it gets to be browned, drain the fat, and return to low heat. then, prepare the SAME SPICES MINUS THE WORCHESTERSHIRE. add 1 TBSP water to the pan of meat, the mix in the spices, trying to pour it evenly over the meat. cook for about 5 minutes of low.

to prepare the soup, ladle the soup into a soup bowl until it is about half full. take a nice french or italian bread (it's more on preference, we've tried both. i think french is a bit better) and slice it thick and lay it atop the soup. then, ladle a bit more soup off, and top it off white cheessburger!

for cooking together, this is great. my husband chops the onions and bacon, while i make the soup and hamburger. it takes a bit all in all, but we put on music, and it turns out really fun!

i'd put an image here, but my current picture of it is a cell phone photo, so you'll have to wait until i break out the dslr!