Valentine's Day aka At-Home Pub Night

Happy Tuesday, readers! Today is Raleigh is 70 degrees and densely foggy. This would be the perfect creepy setting if it were October and not February, but beggars can't be choosers I suppose. I hope the start to your week is well! Mine has been ok except for a car mishap. I won't go into details but I'm annoyed.


Since Valentine's Day was in the middle of the work week, Nate and I decided to celebrate this past weekend instead. And let me preface this by saying that Valentine's Day is not a huge deal to Nate and I. We don't do the fancy candlelight dinners, expensive bottles of wine and extravagant gifts. Why should you spend a fortune to show someone you care for a single day? Nate and I have our traditions though. Every year we get ourselves a Papa Murphy's heart-shaped Take-and-Bake pizza and exchange cards.


But this weekend we told the expensive stuff to take a hike and instead did an At-Home Pub Night with a 6 beer tasting, homemade pretzel bites with a honey mustard dipping sauce and beer cheese soup! Let's jump in, shall we?


At-Home Pub Night

Of course you can't have a pub night without a beer tasting. We took a trip to our local bottle shop (Bottle Revolution on Lake Boon Trail) and picked up six North Carolina brews: Painted Fortune from Bhramari Brewing company in Asheville, Molly's Lips Black Gose from Bhamari Brewing Company, Baby Maker Double IPA from Triple C Brewing in Charlotte, Saints on Raspberries from Big Boss Brewing in Raleigh, King's Bridge English Barleywine from D9 Brewing in Cornelius, and last but certainly not least - Hop Cocoa from newly Anheuser-Busch owned Wicked Weed in Asheville.


I'll give a quick summary of the beers:


Painted Fortune -- slightly sweet from the heirloom corn but that was really the only flavor I could pick up on.


Black Gose -- definitely a favorite from this 6-pack. This beer was dark in color like a Black IPA (one of my favorite beer varieties) but light and slightly tart like a typical gose.
Baby Maker Double IPA -- tasted like your typical double IPA, nothing special really.
Saints on Raspberries -- my absolute favorite from this bunch! The beer was fruity and tart, as a good sour beer should be.
King's Bridge English Barleywine -- I couldn't even take a second sip! This beverage tasted what I'd imagine infusing maple syrup with vodka would taste like. There was an overpowering alcohol taste with a syrupy sweet nose. It was awful.
Hop Cocoa -- truthfully, I don't remember this brew. Maybe it's because I had 5 others prior, or because it just wasn't very spectacular.


Beer Cheese Soup

Beer Cheese Soup and "Molly's Lips" Black Gose

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 C carrots, shredded
3 celery stocks, diced
1 onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
32 oz vegetable broth
12 oz lager beer (I used a Blue Moon)
1 Tsp Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 C Heavy Cream
1/4 C cornstarch
3 C shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Fresh buttered popcorn, for serving


In a large stockpot or Dutch oven, sauté onion and celery until tender, roughly 5 minutes. Add in shredded carrots and garlic and sauté for 2 additional minutes. Stir in broth and beer, season with salt and pepper and Worcestershire sauce and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes.


In a separate bowl, toss together shredded cheese and cornstarch and set aside.


After 30 minutes of simmering, stir in heavy cream. Slowly add the cheese in in handfuls and allow to melt before adding in more. This will allow the cheese to melt evenly and there won't be clumps in your soup. Now comes the fun part! Using an immersion blender, blend soup until velvety and smooth.


Serve soup with a handful of fresh popcorn (a la Flossmor Station) and enjoy! The flavors of this soup are perfect! It tasted like every other beer cheese soup I've ever had, which was really the goal, right? My only disappointment with this recipe was the soup didn't thicken up as much as I would've hoped. One addition I would make would be to add in 1/4 C cream cheese along with the cheddar before blending.


This soup yields about 8 bowlfuls. After we'd had our fill, I allowed the soup to cool before sticking it in a gallon sized zip-top plastic bag and stuck it in the freezer to be enjoyed at a later date.


Pretzel Bites

Pretzel Bites, Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce and "Baby Maker Double IPA"

1 package store-bought pizza crust (thick crust)
2 C warm water
1/2 C  baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp water
Kosher salt


Preheat oven to 400, line a baking sheet with a silicon baking mat and spray with nonstick spray.


Roll out your pizza crust and cut into 1 inch rectangles. Roll into balls.


In a bowl, mix together warm water and baking soda. Set aside.


Dip dough balls in the baking soda mixture and place on your prepared baking sheet.


In a small bowl, combine egg with water to create an egg wash. Using a basting brush, brush each dough ball liberally and sprinkle on the kosher salt. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown and delicious.


These pretzels were amazing! Salty and crusty outsides and soft and pillowy insides. They were nothing short of heaven. We were able to get about 18 pretzel bites out of 1 standard size pizza crust.


Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce


1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 C mayonnaise
2 Tbsp yellow mustard


Combine everything together in a bowl. Serve immediately or refrigerate.


This sauce was utterly delicious and was quite reminiscent of a certain yellow-arched fast-food chain's sauce. It was perfect for dunking fresh pretzel bites in.


This was a great way for Nate and I to spend Valentine's Day without spending a fortune. Stay tuned for Black-Eyed Pea Curry!