Now THIS is some cooking I could get into! 😉
I never used to like beer. I grew up on the beach in FL and I used to be a wino. 😉
My father always drank wine. Maybe it was because his mother was Italian and always had wine with meals. We always had wine around the house (and so it was very easy for me to have some whenever I wanted).
When I moved to Texas (to go to school) I was in for a major culture shock. First of all, most of the area where I moved to was ‘dry’- no alcohol! WTF??!!
Moving from a little fishing town in FL with 15 bars/restaurants within a few blocks (along with everything else we would need to live) to Texas where my school was 5 miles away in one direction one of my jobs was 10 miles away in the other direction and the other job another 5 miles away in yet another direction.
WOW! I really had no idea how big Texas was when I moved here. 🙂
So of course there was nothing within walking distance, or even within a reasonable bike ride away. There was not a bar I could find that had anything but beer. For some reason beer was almost always available even when nothing else was. Blue laws???
So, I switched to beer out of necessity. 😉
I never really thought about cooking with beer, I just drank it. Sometimes I made neat things out of the empty cans. I remember a beer can Christmas tree one year. 😉
I’m not sure why I never thought about cooking with beer before. I did cook with wine growing up. I remember a bunch of my dads fishermen pals stopping by to help me cook a pot of beef stew.
It went like this… throw some onions and the beef in the pot and some (red) wine. Pass around the wine.
Check on the stew, throw in some potatoes and celery and some more wine. Pass around the bottle.
Check on the stew, throw in some carrots and mushrooms and some more wine. Pass around (another) bottle.
I think you get the picture. 😉
We all enjoyed the stew!! 🙂
I think this ‘Peppered Beef Soup’ could be done in the same style. I’ll have to invite some friends over and try it out one of these days. 🙂
That ‘Beer Cheese Spread” does look really good to me, and not too hard to make either. I’ll definitely be trying that recipe soon!
I’m not too sure about the rest of the recipes (just not really my kind of thing), tho they do sound like a good way to use up your beer (if for some reason you don’t drink it all).