Corn Chowder

Finally.  I know.  I’m sorry.

Sweet corn season is pretty much at an end around here, so this recipe is poorly late.  However, it may be useful to some out there.  It’s adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, which is probably one of my favorites.  We found we like that recipe, but for my kids’ sake, I took out some of the peppers, and I’ve also added some potatoes.

I made a 5x batch.  This recipe is for just 1 batch:

5 ears of raw corn, sliced off
4 slices of bacon (She says 2…it really needs 4, and actually I would put in more in the future.  Can you ever really have too much bacon?)
1 medium onion, and butter to cook it in
4 cups of chicken broth (we used homemade turkey broth, which is a great chicken broth substitute)
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 Tablespoons cornmeal
4 medium potatoes diced small.  (1/2-1 inch pieces)
salt to taste
white pepper to taste  (my favorite white-soup addition.  Every white soup needs white pepper in it.  It’s amazing.)

Directions:
Slice all the corn off the cob.  Dice onion and bacon.  On the stovetop, cook the onion and bacon in the butter over medium heat for about 5 minutes.  Then add the corn and potatoes.  Stir over stove until it all elements get good and “sweaty.”  (Sorry for that word.  I’m not sure how else to describe it.)  Then add broth and cream.  Add salt and pepper, and let it simmer for at least 30 minutes.  Mix the cornmeal with 1/4 cup of water, and add to the soup.  Cook for another 10 minutes.  

Now, I will grant you that this is not the healthiest of recipes.  It’s not very South-Beach-Diet friendly.  It pretty much has a lot of carbs.  That’s why it’s sooooo good!

When I froze this soup, I put a family sized portion into a gallon sized freezer bag, all labeled with the date and contents.  It will be ready to heat up as an after baby-girl is born warm goodness, or more likely, a “I’m too-big-and-pregnant-to-stand-over-the-stove-and-I-hate-cooking” sort of end of pregnancy meal.  I think technically, this would be good in the freezer for 6 months, but when soups have milk or cream in them, I try to use them up in about 3 months when they have been frozen.  I reach for my freezer meals so often that it’s usually not a problem.

Anyway, typing up this recipe makes me think that I should do a post sometime on all that I do for freezer cooking.  Then I realized that’s definitely going to take more than one post.  I may start a series on the subject, and talk about some freezer cooking rules and some recipes every week.  Saturday maybe?  We’ll see.  I get so many questions about freezer cooking, and it truly is a time saver for me, and I couldn’t manage running this house without it.  I’m not sure how people find the time to cook every day, but I’m in awe of those who do!