Holo Writing

Authors Jacob & H.P. Holo

cooking

Authors Just Talk About Cooking – Virtual Panel

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H.P. had so much fun chattering about pets earlier this month that she decided to host another panel. šŸ˜

Join her, Jonathan Brazee, Sarah K. Stephens, and Terry Maggert on Thursday, October 29th @ 8pm EST as they just talk about…cooking! šŸ˜‹

Again, the event will be live-streamed on our Facebook page, but here’s the Zoom link for those who’d like to register to watch there!

See you next week! šŸ˜€

***

UPDATE: Here’s the archived panel on YouTube (or, if you’d like to watch it on Facebook, here)!

Recipes on Top – Fat Tire Soup (or, Sublime Beer Cheese Soup Mark III – Low Fat, Low Cholesterol)

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One of my pals left her #ale at my house so naturally I made a soup out of it. šŸ» Iā€™ve been trying to modify one of our favorite recipes – Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup – for Jacobā€™s diet, but since two of its key ingredients are bacon and cheese (two no-nos for him), itā€™s been a challenge to create a soup thatā€™s quite as savory and satisfying. Fortunately, Katja and Fat Tire came to us in our hour of need! While nothing can truly take the place of bacon and cheese, the bold flavor of Fat Tire (compared to the Canadian beer weā€™d been using) complemented the vegetable ingredients very well! Boil some baby fingerling potatoes in the broth once the rest of the soup is done, and then pour it all back in, and you have perfection! šŸ˜‹ #souplife

A post shared by H. P. Holo (@hpholo) on

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium red onion cut into Ā¼ in pieces
  • 1 package celery, chopped into chunks
  • 1 package carrots, chopped into chunks
  • 1 24 oz. package baby fingerling potatoes or honey gold potatoes, cut in half
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup skim milk
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • 3 dashes Tabasco sauce
  • Ā½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 bottle of Fat Tire Amber Ale
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Bread of choice

Instructions:

  1. Pour half the Fat Tire into a large soup pot.
  2. Add onions, celery, and carrots, and cook until the onion is tender.
  3. Sprinkle in flour and stir constantly for 2 minutes. Stir in milk and stock, a little at a time, blending well to ensure there are no lumps. Add potatoes, then bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.
  4. Remove from heat and whisk in Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, and the rest of the beer.Ā 
  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Serve with your favorite bread. (I like sourdough with this one.)

Babble:
The previous version of this soup had been just about perfect for us…but then concerns about Jacobā€™s heart health required that we shift to a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, which meant we had to cut everything that made Marks I and II fun – namely, the bacon and cheese.Ā  šŸ˜« However, I like a culinary challenge and so took it upon myself to create a variation that fit within his diet but still tasted yummy.
Luckily for us, one of our friends left a bottle of Fat Tire at our house – and food that is left at our house automatically becomes fodder for my cooking experiments. (Which is not a bad thing because then my friends get to taste the results!) šŸ˜‹
While Canadian beers worked for the previous versions, we found that Fat Tire has a unique and distinct flavor that more than made up for the flavor lost with the removal of the fatty ingredients. Fingerling potatoes in particular also have a nice, rich flavor that similarly compensates for the loss of fat, though I found that the gold potatoes taste better in this recipe than the variety packs (which include purple potatoes). Honey gold potatoes are also a good substitute when fingerling potatoes arenā€™t available.
Also, as you can see in the pic, there’s no limit to the veggie ingredients you can include, and this soup – like many vegetable soups – is a perfect clean-out-the-veggie-drawer soup. šŸ˜€ Thus, mushrooms and cauliflower. I usually add these extra veggies in Step 3 (with the potatoes).

Recipes on Top – Sublime Beer Cheese Soup (Mark II – Veggie Bomb)

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Ingredients:

  • 1 lb smoked bacon, finely chopped
  • 1 medium red onion cut into Ā¼ in pieces
  • 1 package celery, chopped into chunks
  • 1 package carrots, chopped into chunks
  • 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
  • 1 cup skim milk
  • 4 cups chicken stock
  • 4 oz grated white cheddar
  • 3 dashes Tabasco sauce
  • Ā½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • Ā½ cup beer (preferably a dark Canadian), room temperature
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Bread of choice

Instructions:

  1. Cook the bacon in a large soup pot over medium heat until lightly browned.
  2. Add onions, celery, and carrots, and cook until the onion is tender.
  3. Sprinkle in flour and stir constantly for 2 minutes. Stir in milk and stock, a little at a time, blending well to ensure there are no lumps. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
  4. Remove from heat and whisk in cheese, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, and beer. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Serve with your favorite bread. (I usually like French or Italian bread.)

Babble:
This variation of the Mark I came about because every time I made the Mark I, we basically ended up eating a whole block of cheese in one sitting – and while our taste buds very much enjoyed that, our guts did not. Also, when I cook, I generally like to use complete packages of whatever I ingredients buy just so I donā€™t have to store them (i.e. forget about them and find them moldy and mutating in the back of the fridge months later).Ā 
Thus, to make a less overwhelming soup, I significantly cut the amount of cheese involved and then restored the soupā€™s heft with added bacon and vegetables. Itā€™s far from a healthy soup – after all, we went from eating a whole block of cheese in one sitting to a whole pack of bacon in one sitting – but itā€™s certainly yummy as heck.

Recipes on Top – Sublime Beer Cheese Soup (Mark I – Cheese Bomb)

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Ingredients:Ā 

  • Ā¼ lb smoked bacon, finely chopped
  • 1 medium red onion cut into Ā¼ in pieces
  • Ā½ cup finely sliced celery
  • Ā½ cup finely chopped carrots
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 3 cups whole milk
  • 2 cups chicken stock
  • 12 oz grated white cheddar
  • 3 dashes Tabasco sauce
  • Ā½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • Ā½ cup beer (preferably a dark Canadian), room temperature
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tablespoon thinly sliced chives for garnish
  • bread of choice

Instructions:

  1. Cook the bacon in a large heavy-bottomed, non-reactive soup pot (cast iron Dutch oven works better) over medium heat until lightly browned.
  2. Add onions, celery, and carrots, and cook until the onion is tender.
  3. Sprinkle in flour and stir constantly for 2 minutes. Stir in milk and stock, a little at a time, blending well to ensure there are no lumps. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
  4. Remove from heat and whisk in cheese, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, and beer. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Serve with your favorite bread (Try a French baguette) and top with chopped chives.

Babble:
If you follow me on Instagram, you know I love to cook. You know I also HATE SCROLLING DOWN THROUGH A MILLION ADS AND LIFE STORIES JUST TO GET TO THE GOTDANG RECIPE. šŸ˜¤šŸ˜¤šŸ˜¤ Pro Tip If Youā€™re Writing For Hungry People: NOBODY cares about your life when thereā€™s the potential of food in the near future. Just sayinā€™.
That said, welcome to our newest blog feature, Recipes on Top, wherein I share my favorite recipes – at the top of the post, ā€˜cause ainā€™t nobody got time for the alternative. šŸ˜‹
However, if you would like something to read in those small minutes when youā€™re waiting for your food to finish, Iā€™ll include some thoughts on the recipe below the content itself. Sometimes itā€™ll be a cute story, sometimes a look into the process of developing the recipe – but always, itā€™ll come after the good stuff. ā˜ŗļø
Now, for this first recipe, I have to give credit where credit is due:Ā 
This one actually belongs to Jacobā€™s best friend, Joe, who gave it to us as part of a wedding gift – a cookbook composed of handy recipes hand-chosen by the man himself. By day Joe is a music teacher, but by night heā€™s the foodiest of foodies and much of the cookbook is the result of years of love and experimentation.

This particular recipe is one he based on the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup he tried at Le Cellier Restaurant in Epcot at Disney World.
We pondered trying the original when we went to Le Cellier several years ago, but then reasoned that this version was so yummy, nothing could possibly be better (so we gorged ourselves on poutine instead. And then got sick from Too Much Poutine. But it was worth it). šŸ„°