The first of two Barefoot Bloggers recipes for this month is
Cheddar Corn Chowder, chosen by
Jill of
My Next Life.
I have a lot to say about soup. I've always considered it my specialty and have seldom made a bad soup. It's what I enjoy making most as well -- just the therapeutic value of building and stirring a soup and then eating it with a big soup spoon will put you in a good place.
So, I have some basic rules about soup, which I find are always true.
1. All soup recipes are merely recommendations. Soup is the most adaptable recipe there is and you seldom need measurements.
2. It's impossible to make a small batch, no matter how hard you try to cut back proportions. It just keeps growing and growing.
Those are the Top Two Rules. They apply to everyone. To continue, the following are my own particular rules, although I think you should adopt them as well.
3. There are no canned soups worth eating as soup. I can forgive using soup as an ingredient (King Ranch Chicken, anyone?) on occasion, but if you open a can of soup and eat it as soup, I just pity you. I don't even use canned chicken broth. See number 5.
4. There are two possible exceptions to Rule 3. On a really desperate kind of day, or when you're sick and you just must have childhood favorites, I can tolerate a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup, but only if it's made with milk, and, sometimes a can of Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup can be very pleasant. But that's it.
5. If you have ever purchased a rotisserie chicken from the store, you have 2-3 quarts of chicken stock, right there. Never, ever, forgot that homemade chicken stock is not only better, it's completely worth the monkey-simple process to make it.
So, with all of that in mind, I found that I had everything I needed to make this month's first recipe, without a trip to the store. That's how packed my freezer and cupboards are, but, I have a stocking disease.
I noted right off the bat that this soup had three kinds of fat and needed some adjustments. I thought "
Sheesh, it has bacon cooked in olive oil? That's two right there, and then she adds butter, that's three. We can improve on that--- oh wait. The cheese is a fat --- oh, and so is the half and half. This soup has five kinds of fat!?"
Ina, I love you, but this is why you don't look the way you did when Jeffrey was courting you. You're still cute as a button, though.
To start, I scaled the recipe WAY down (see rule number 1) and just sauteed a bit of bacon in a splash of olive oil, and proceeded along, using my own chicken stock, diced heirloom potatoes, and a handful of onions. Nothing even close to her quantities -- in fact I made no measurements, I just used her recipe instructions as a guideline, even making the roux. Still, after adding my stock and a handful of onions there and a handful of chopped potatoes there, a couple of handfuls of frozen fire roasted corn here and there, tasting, stirring, tasting, stirring, I must have had enough soup for 10 people (see rule number 2). Dagnabbit!
Finally, as it was nearly ready, in place of the 2 cups of half and half, I just used 1/3 cup of fat free half and half which I keep on hand just for thickening sauces and gravies and soups (it works very well in that capacity), and, just a scant handful (perhaps 1/2 cup at most) of shredded cheddar cheese for the entire pot.
My thinking was, I'd use a scant bit of cheese to flavor the soup, and use the rest for topping individual bowls. In this way, when you chill the leftovers, it won't congeal quite as much, and, you control the fat grams by just sprinkling the cheese and bacon on top of each bowl.
A mere 30 minutes later, soup was on the table (with 10 or 20 quarts on standby) and it was tasty, but missing a certain "bite" I felt it needed. It was a bit too bland, even though it was well seasoned and the ingredients reasonably porportioned.
I don't care for hot or spicy foods, but this one called out for a snappy something, so Green Chili bits to the rescue, for a California Monterey flavor. I dropped in a few frozen chunks of chopped green chilis (I freeze little bits for this purpose), heated it, and that added the tasty, tangy bite I was looking for. When I serve up additional bowls this weekend, I think I'll stir in a bit of chili powder as well. The tumeric is lovely to look at (such a pretty yellow color) but doesn't add much in the way of flavor, so I think some smokey chili powder will perk this up even more.
Thanks, Jill, you've expanded my repertoire!
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