Cooking Cheap

I had a sirloin steak defrosting and the latest loaf of bread cooling when, Emirl’s sausage show came on the tube. His bratwurst soup is pretty close to the Francesina stuff I’ve fallen in love with.

I have brat’s in the freezer and some of garden potatoes I need to use up and some celery and carrots aging in the fridge. I seem to have a crusty loaf of sourdough bread to soak up the soap. Might be better than a steak. I haven’t looked at the recipe at the Food TV website.

I had two frozen uncooked brats. I brought a light beer to a slow boil in a small pot and added the frozen brats and a bay leaf. Turned them occasionally while cutting up the onions, carrot (just one) and celery (1 or 2 small stalks) and slicing the onion. Table spoon of butter, saute the onions on med low until soft,Remove the brats from their pan and let cools. Add the carrots and celery. Saute for a few minutes, Add a shot or two of red wine and reduce. Add the simmered beer and brat juice to the veggies. Half tsp of dried thyme. Remove the bay leaf. Clean and chunk the potatoes and add. Add some “beef base” [bullion with water] or stock. Find the lowest simmer you can get. Slice the cooled brats into 1/4 inch rounds and add to the soup. Add more beer or beef stock as needed. Let the taters thicken the soup by slowing simmering until they break up and thicken the soup.

Looks to me like this will feed two.

It was OK. I don’t think I’ll do it again. The beer that the brat’s boiled in is pretty greasy and you need a quality beer which I didn’t use.