I'm on a mission to use up all the stuff in my freezer and pantry. This is made rather difficult by my neurotic tendency to replace things as soon as I use them, especially staples. I'm trying to resist that tendency. My stock of canned beans and tomatoes is dwindling, and it makes me nervous lol. BUT WHAT IF I HAVE TO MAKE EMERGENCY CHILI AND THE STORES ARE CLOSED!? Anyways, I cleaned out/reorganized my freezer yesterday and found that I had 3 separate bags of corn in there. Half a bag of grocery store corn, a bag of shucked farmers' market corn from last year, AND a bag of shucked farmers' market corn from this year. Too much corn. Plus I wanted the space, because I wanted to make a bunch of meals and freeze them. (Exams are coming up next month, and I'm getting into super-prep stockpile mode.) Also, I get into these moments when I realize I literally have weeks worth of food in the house, so I try to get creative on how to fit it all together into semi-coherent meals. It's like a puzzle. For neurotics and overplanners. Hooray!
So anyway, I had this corn. And I had some bacon (made corn and bacon hash last week...omg. http://smittenkitchen.com/2012/07/17/bacon-corn-hash/). And also some celery from my epic roasted chicken --> chicken stock --> chicken soup extravaganza last week. And oh look, a carton of fat free half-and-half that needs to be used this week. Hey, scallions! Half a yellow onion leftover! OMG do you know what this means? Corn chowder. I was taking a walk and doing errands this morning and walked by Whole Foods. Know what would be good on this corn chowder? Those fancy chipotle shrimp from the seafood bar. Huzzah! This is clearly the stars alligning in favor of corn chowder.
I realize I'm a weirdo for making all kinds of soups during this sweltering hellbox of a Chicago summer, but no one said I had to make sense all the time.
I basically adapted a recipe from Cooking Light (http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/bacon-corn-chowder-shrimp-50400000114422/). (BTW, I ordered this year's Cooking Light cookbook, and I totally feel awesome about that decision.) The original recipe actually wasn't so light, so I changed a few things, but it's still awesome. Do this now.
INGREDIENTS:
4 slices bacon, chopped into lardons
1 cup onion, chopped
1/3 cup celery, chopped (I just used one large rib, so just use however much works)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tsp fresh thyme, minced (I used 1 tsp and it was pretty faint, so you could add more if you like thyme)
4 cups corn kernels (thawed if frozen)
2 cups chicken broth (I use fat free, reduced sodium...all the homemade stuff was already frozen...oops lol)
1/3 cup half-and-half (I used fat free, and it worked great.)
Salt and pepper to taste
Cooked shrimp (However many you want - I think 3 per bowl is plenty. Like I said, I just bought the pre-cooked chipotle shrimp from Whole Foods.)
Chopped scallions, for garnish.
Get all this fun stuff chopped, along with the bacon:
Brown the bacon in a Dutch oven or stock pot over medium or medium-high heat. (I have kind of a gimpy electric stove, so I usually have to kick it up a bit to medium-high, but you know your stove). Remove bacon bits with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
I love this part...add the onions, celery, garlic, and thyme to the bacon fat. Cook 3 minutes until softened, stirring frequently.
Add the corn and cook 4 minutes, stirring periodically. (Note, I decided to leave some of the liquid from the corn, since I figured there was delicious corn flavor in there. The tradeoff is that your corn won't get any color on it, so if you want some char, you can squeeze all the liquid out. I'm not sure how worth it that is though, since there's a lot of corn and it would take forever to brown, especially because it lowers the temp in the pot initially.)
Add the broth, bring to a boil, and then reduce and simmer about 5 minutes. (Note: You'll probably want to eyeball the broth. Start with 1 1/2 cups and see if you need more, because too much liquid makes the puree and reblend step sort of hard, and you want the soup to be chowdery, not watery.)
Put about half, maybe 2/3 of the corn mixture into a blender or food processor and pulse until blended but still a bit textury (it's a word).
Put the blended mixture back into the pot and stir to combine with the non-blended mixture.
Remove the pot from the heat and add the half-and-half, stirring to combine.
Chowder! Add salt and pepper to taste. I actually didn't add any extra salt because the flavor of the corn was so awesome and the bacon and shrimp had salt, but do what your heart desires. Ladle chowder into bowls. Now top with shrimp and garnish with the bacon and scallions all purty-like.
(Note: The Cooking Light recipe calls for using raw shrimp and cooking them in the soup for a couple minutes, and it also uses more bacon and incorporates some into the soup itself. You could totally do those things. But I like my way better, so there.)
This makes 4 first-course servings, but if you're looking for this to be dinner, it more realistically makes 3 servings. Double the recipe if you're serving more people or want leftovers. (And why wouldn't you want leftovers!?)
And today's media pairing:
You knew it was coming. Yes, it's the Ipecac/Who wants chowdah? segment from family guy. Actually, you probably shouldn't watch this anytime near dinnertime or anywhere near chowder lol.
