Cheddar Horseradish Soup

You may recall a not-so-long-ago post where I described the mayhem that was created the last time I visited Ginny and we decided to make our own horseradish....from scratch....and nearly lost our eyebrows and nose hairs in the process.

Well, since that time, my precocious little jar of fresh horseradish has been languishing in the depths of my Frigidaire. Apparently, I just don?t use that much horseradish. That is, until now.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a recipe for Cheddar Horseradish Soup from Food Network Magazine and decided we needed to give it a try. Ginny made it first, for her coworkers, and got rave reviews. Then, when we were overdosed on caffeine and lack of real sustenance during our weekend of candy making, we needed something to eat. Fast.

It turns out we had everything required for the soup and proceeded to put the stove to work.

The result? A lovely, unctuous concoction with just a touch of heat (the ¼ cup of horseradish called for in the recipe scared me a little, but it worked out nicely). Since we had a huge bowl of dried out bread torn up to make stuffing with later in the weekend, we threw several chunks in each bowl and then topped it with the soup. Being in full-on ?bacon? mode lately, I think it would have been even better with some crumbled bacon on top, but you know what they say about hindsight....

The recipe provided by Food Network Magazine was very simple. It looked something like this:

Sweat 2 each diced carrots and leeks in butter. Add cayenne, salt, 3 tablespoons flour and 2 tablespoons dry mustard; cook 2 minutes. Add 1 bottle beer, 1/4 cup horseradish, 3 cups water and a dash of Worcestershire; simmer until thick. Whisk in 2 cups half-and-half and 1 1/2 cups cheddar.

Really. That?s all it said. And, frankly, that?s all it needed! The only change we made was to substitute chicken stock from my freezer for the 3 cups of water, and it was the ideal little warmer-upper for a chilly November day.

Don?t you agree?