bacon corn chowder.

Last night over baked potatoes, I pointed out to my husband that we'd managed to stretch a package of bacon through 5 different meals. (chowder, BLTs, baked potatoes, chicken sandwiches, and one day for breakfast.) His response was "Holy crap, we've been eating nothing but bacon all week!" Yeah, well. It's bacon!



When I put these (admittedly weirdly-looking. I'm still working out my indoor lighting situation- winter is looming and how am I going to photograph all my delicious food?) pictures up on flickr the other day, my friend commented asking for the recipe. Uh, sorry I waited so long, Heidi. Here you go.

Jason wanted some corn chowder for dinner, so after skimming through a couple of cookbooks for inspiration (he doesn't look up recipes- he just gets "ideas." Ha!) he set to work. Afterward, I drilled him for his process, and he gave me the usual convoluted, "And then I did this- no, wait first I did this. And then this." It sure is hard to squeeze a recipe out of this dude, but here is what I ended up with:

You'll need:

A handful of cooked, chopped bacon.
3 cups of corn (we used Trader Joe's fire-roasted corn, it's frozen. If you have a Trader Joe's nearby, pick it up, it's awesome.)
3 cups of stock (we used vegetable. chicken would be suitable.)
3 cups of milk
1/2 a beer (Jubelale's back!)
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 cloves crushed garlic
A handful of diced red potatoes
Salt & white pepper (whatever Jason, just use black pepper, Mr. Fancypants.)
1 bay leaf
fresh basil for garnish
a pinch of flour
a hunk of butter


First, cook bacon in a small pan until desired level of crispness is achieved. Put cooked bacon aside, and strain fat into the soup pot.
Throw in a chunk of butter, and simmer raw potatoes, garlic, onions, and thawed and strained corn, until onions begin to get glassy.
Add a pinch of flour (or a handful) and mix into a sort of a roux with the vegetables. Let it cook for a moment or two, then dump in half a bottle of beer.
Add vegetable stock and milk, season with salt & pepper, add a bay leaf, and let simmer until potatoes become soft.
Before serving, stir in some of the bacon and sprinkle some on top with fresh basil to garnish.
Serves 4-6.



It's not a very thick chowder, which was intentional- it's creamy and chunky, but you still have to slurp it a little. It'll thicken up over time if you let it simmer, of course.

Hooray for winter soups! For those of you who are waiting for butternut squash soup recipes- we're going out of town tonight and we'll be back in just over a week- but I cooked up a batch of stock yesterday that was mostly carrots (cleaning out the fridge before we leave) which I think will make a perfect sweet base for a butternut squash soup. So, don't worry. It's coming.