THE BIG GREEN POT: Bendy Briar Label Bacon Soup

February 7, 2020 Jennifer Fox

I love to cook and the Big Green Pot is my trusty enameled cast iron pot in which I experiment with soups, stews, sauces, you name it. It’s become sort of a physical metaphor for all of my cooking and experimenting. I should mention, I’m really bad at following recipes. To me recipes are more like jumping off points or reference, there to inspire or to be referred back to for a particular method, time, or temperature, but rarely if ever to be followed soup-to-nuts. Various members of our family also have different food intolerances (ie. dairy, onions, wheat) so I’m often avoiding and adapting to accommodate that when I cook.

In addition to reading cookbooks and food magazines for grown ups, I love to read children’s books with recipes in them. As a kid, I was enchanted by the CRANBERRY and OLD WITCH books by Wende and Harry Devlin. I remember being introduced to them one crisp fall afternoon, by my elementary school librarian, Mrs. Bright, who read us CRANBERRY HALLOWEEN. (Elementary school librarians rule!)

Each book was a charming, superbly-illustrated little mystery with a recipe in the back. Which honestly, may have been my favorite part. For the CRANBERRY series the recipes all featured, you guessed it . . . cranberries. Cranberry bread, cranberry cobbler, cranberry upside down cake, and a gelatinous, ambiguously-named ‘cranberry dessert.’ As a mom, I read the series to my own kids, starting every fall with CRANBERRY HALLOWEEN. I plan to continue this tradition until my children refuse to listen any longer, or move out of the house, whichever comes first.

Of course, as my sons get older, their tastes in books (and food) change, it feels like daily. Needless to say, I was completely on board when my ten-year old recently asked me to make him a recipe from a new book he was reading: BENDY & THE INK MACHINE JOEY DREW STUDIOS EMPLOYEE MANUAL.

To parents of little kids, Bendy might skew a little dark and kind of creepy. However, my big kid loves it (at least for the moment) and I’m all for things that keep him reading, drawing, and thinking outside the box, which BENDY & THE INK MACHINE does. It’s a pretty creative, if eerie, world the Joey Drew Studio folks have created, a sinister little animation factory fueled in part by cans of the fictitious Briar Label Bacon Soup—the recipe my son wanted to make. A real food, non-dessert recipe! Even better, soup, one of my favorites because I’m exciting like that.

SO, we pulled out the Big Green Pot and made the Bendy soup as we called it (with our own tweaks). It turned out great! My son was so thrilled that he gobbled it up and said he would definitely eat it again—music to any cooking parent’s ears.

As C.S. Lewis put it, “Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”

There’s a delicious magic that happens when you connect something you love to read with something you want to eat. I tasted that delicious magic as a kid and was thrilled to watch my son do the same.

Happy Reading! Happy Eating! Happy reading books about eating!

BRIAR LABEL BACON SOUP

Credit: BENDY & THE INK MACHINETM JOEY DREW STUDIOS (TM) EMPLOYEE MANUAL.

Ingredients

1 lb. premium Canadian bacon

3/4 cup chopped onion

3/4 cup peeled, diced carrots

3/4 cup diced celery

4 cups peeled, diced potatoes

4 Tbsps butter

3 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup flour

2 cups cheddar cheese

1 cup milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Instructions:

Using 1 Tbsp of butter, sauté onions, carrots, and celery in a large soup pot until tender. Add chopped bacon to the pot and cook until crispy.
Add broth and potatoes to your soup pot, bringing it to the boil. Reduce heat, keeping the soup on a simmer. Cook ten minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
Combine 3 Tbsps of butter with the flour in the skillet, cooking for roughly five minutes, or until bubbly. Add this to the soup pot, and bring it to a boil once again. Reduce heat, simmering soup for another 3-5 minutes.
Reduce heat to low. Stir heavy cream, milk, cheese salt, and pepper into the soup pot, cooking until cheese is melted.

For more about the CRANBERRY BOOKS visit:

http://harryandwendedevlin.com/

BENDY & THE INK MACHINETM JOEY DREW STUDIOSTM EMPLOYEE MANUALby Cala Spinner published by AFK/an imprint of Scholastic is copyright © 2019 Joey Drew Studios Inc. Bendy, Bendy and the Ink Machine, The Bendy characters, images, and logos are trademarks of the Joey Drew Studios Inc. All rights reserved.