Summer Corn Chowder

I’ve been attempting to go through all of my recipes and cull out the ones I never make, test out some new ones, perfect the old standbys, all so I can use my new notebooks and make my meal planning go from my most hated chore to my most favorite.

I’ve always loved a good soup, and I realized that I had about four different, but essentially the same, recipes for a simple corn chowder. It’s one of Bear’s favorite things in the world, it’s super easy to make, and it’s a great summer recipe with all those fresh garden veggies in there. After sorting through all the variations, here’s my version of it.

Summer Corn Chowder

½ lb bacon
½ C chopped onion
½ C chopped celery
¼ C chopped green pepper
½ C roasted red pepper
2 C diced potatoes
5 C chicken broth
2 C water
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs thyme
3 sprigs oregano
3 C corn
1 pint whipping cream
2 Tbs flour
2 Tbs butter

Chop bacon and fry in a stockpot. Remove bacon from the pan and drain grease until about 2 Tbs remains. Add the onion, celery, and pepper and sweat until translucent. Add potatoes, broth, water, salt, corn, and then add the herbs tied up in a bundle. Simmer until the potatoes are tender. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and then stir in the flour to form a roux. Add the whipping cream and allow it to thicken at medium heat. Incorporate the milk mixture into the rest of the soup and heat through.

You can use fresh or frozen corn, either one will work just fine. Add them at the same point in the recipe, but don’t defrost the frozen corn first. Roasting the red pepper was a really important point to me. The roasting makes such a difference, it’s like a whole different vegetable. You can buy a jar of roasted peppers and just chop those up, but I save myself the money and just get a regular red pepper, chop it in half and clean out the seeds and veins, toss it on a cookie sheet skin side up, and through it under the broiler for five minutes or until the skin is charred. The skin peels right off and you’re left with this wonderful spicy smoky new thing altogether. I’ve also been known to toss bits of roasted red pepper into my corn bread. Good golly it’s delicious.