Corn Chowder

Here is the first installment of the soup/stew series and it happens to come from City Girl.  Ironically, unbeknownst to me, she has been going through a soup-phase also.  I guess autumn is the same whether you live in Wisconson or Nevada.  Okay.  Here’s CG:

• 1 T butter
• 1 peice of bacon
• 1/2 onion -chopped
• 1 red pepper
• 1 C carrots-chopped
• 4 pieces of corn (kernels cut off, keep cob-break in half…..)
    ***if you don’t have real fresh corn you could use canned…..****
• 1 Lg uncooked potato-peeled and chopped into bite size  pieces
• 1 sm whole cooked baked potao ( I just use the microwave)
• 3 1/2 C  2% milk
• 2 C vegetable broth
• salt
• pepper
• cayenne pepper
• Lawry’s salt
• red pepper flakes
• garlic salt

Melt butter in large pot.  Add piece of bacon and cook for about 4-5 minutes; don’t fry bacon until its crispy.  Add onions saute for about 5 more minutes.  Add red pepper and carrots, saute for 5 more minutes.  Add corn cobs, milk, and broth.  Heat on very low for about 40 minutes (you don’t want it to boil because of the milk, just simmer it very slowly).  You should try to stir it every 5-10 minutes or so.  After you add the liquid season to taste.  Just a little bit of cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes gives it a great hint of flavor, but doesn’t make it spicy hot…After 40 minutes take out cobs and piece of bacon.  Add corn kernels and chopped potatoes.  Simmer on low for another 20 minutes.  Mash baked potato, throwing away the skin.
Add mashed potato into pot; cook another 5 minutes.
 
Enjoy!!
 
The starch from boiling the potatoes and adding the cooked mashed taters gives it a little more thickness, without having to use heavier milk or cream….
 
Here is my little story about how this chowder came to be….
Months and months ago I was talking to Farm Girl about soup….I was craving corn chowder, but didn’t know how to make it, or how to make it kinda healthy.
Well, back in august I went to visit my family and FG.  It was sweet corn season there…so like a true Wisconsin girl I packed up 15 pieces of corn and put them in my suitcase to take back to Nevada with me. 
I froze most of it for later use….and a few days ago I looked in my freezer and decided I needed to use that corn.
So, I researched corn chowder on the Internet, found a few recipes, and kinda combined things into my own version…..
 
After I made this soup I hopped onto FG pages to check it out…and to my surprise she had just done a section on soups and stews.  Sorry I didn’t get this to you before you did that…but it must be the time of year all over the country, cause here in Las Vegas I am craving soup too!!
 
I hope you enjoy!!
 
P.S. sorry the picture isn’t that great…had to use my phone to take the pic because my camera battery was dead.