How Not to Make Beer Vegan Cheese Soup

Beer, vegan cheese, soup… what’s not to love, right? Not the way I made it two days ago. To help you avoiding wasting good ingredients and ending up with a sticky mess, I’ll share my recipe for disaster.

1.  Find recipe for soup and check fridge and cupboard for ingredients. Beer? Check. Sure, those three bottles have been in my refrigerator since 2013, but it’s still beer. Vegan cheese? Check. It’s not cheddar as called for in the recipe, but I’m sure pepper jack and nutritional yeast will work just fine, right? Everything is better with nutritional yeast. Flour? Got it. Dried mustard? Now they tell me. I do have some honey mustard in the fridge. Vegetable stock? Damn, I forgot to buy that last time I was at Everything We Sell is Wrapped in Plastic But We Still Pretend to Be a Healthy Place for Groceries (aka, Trader Joe’s). I’ll just add more beer.

2.  Follow recipe, using substitutions as necessary.

3.  Accidentally dump in 1/2 cup of flour instead of 1/4 cup. Try to scoop it out, but it’s wet, so leave most of it. The good news is, it’s self-rising flour, so maybe it will rise above the soup when it’s done.

4.  Stir everything together in pot on high heat because my 1965 GE stove has to start off on high in order to get going (kind of like it’s owner).

5.  Answer phone . Chat with friend for 5 minutes before realizing pot is still on high. Turn down heat and note that half of the mixture has already burnt to the bottom of the pan. That explains the smell, which is good because at least it’s not a stroke, which was my first thought.

6.  Talk for another 35 minutes about why men suck, occasionally stirring soup, which seems to go through three phases: too thin, nice and thick, and too thin with lumps that appear to be some kind of nutritional yeast dumplings.

7.  Hang up phone. Get 35-year-old hand-mixer out in an attempt to smooth out cheese lumps. Consider doing same to cellulite on thighs.

8.  Taste soup. Maybe despite being semi-burnt and lumpy, it will still be palatable because beer.

9.  Pour soup out.

10.  Spend 10 minutes washing cheese/yeast off beaters and scrubbing burnt goo from bottom of pan.

11.  Drink amaretto sour because beer is now all gone. Snack on remaining vegan pepper jack cheese and call it good.

12.  Serving size: One. You don’t want anyone else exposed to this mess.