Corn Chowder Soup

Last night I decided I really wanted to make a red meat dish with a soup as a side, and I came across a few recipes for Corn Chowder, a soup I've never eaten, no less cooked.  Now for anyone who lives in NYC, you know it was 105 degrees outside yesterday, so who in their right mind, would want to eat soup? Well.....that would be me.....I never do things that are normal and this is just one of them.  I made this soup alongside a nice steak and I have to say it was a great compliment to a red meat dish!  The only note I will make is that in the few recipes I found, they didn't call for enough corn (kinda bizarre considering it's a CORN Chowder....).  So my soup was under-corned, but the final recipe I am posting below will have the correct amount of corn for your soup! You can never have too much corn....but I digress...

Corn Chowder Soup

1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes

2 tbsp Butter

1 Large Onion

3 Garlic Cloves

2 Celery Stalks

1 Large Carrot

1 Red Bell Pepper

3 Cups Chicken Stock

2 Large Potatoes

2 15 oz. cans of Corn (or 4 cups of frozen corn)

1/3 cup Flour

3 1/2 cups Skim Milk

1/2 tsp Thyme

1/2 tsp Rosemary

Salt & Pepper

1/8 cup Wondra

> One of the inspirations to make a soup last night was the fact that my cousin Greer got us an AWESOME huge dutch oven for our wedding that I was dying to try out!  Look at it in all it's glory.... :) my, my, kitchen supplies make me entirely too happy....

 > Chop up your onion, celery, carrot, pepper and garlic.

 > Meanwhile in a large soup pot (or awesome dutch oven) heat up and melt the butter, once it's melted on a medium heat, add the Red Pepper Flakes and cook for about an minute.

 > Now add in your chopped vegetables, cook on a medium heat for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally.

 > While the veggies are cooking, peel and cube your potatoes.

 > Add in your potatoes and Chicken Broth and cook for another 5 minutes.

 > While that's cooking, whisk your flour and milk together in a bowl until the flour is dissolved completely in the milk.

 > Get your corn ready!

 > Add the flour/milk mixture, the corn, thyme and rosemary into the soup.  Cover the pot and cook on a low heat for at least 20 minutes (check occasionally to stir and make sure nothing's burning).

 > Once your soup has cooked for at least 20-30 minutes, you should check the taste.  Add salt and pepper to your liking at this point.  Also, as I stated above, I added in Wondra (a thickening agent) only because I like my soups a little heaver, but if you like them more like a soup and less like a stew, leave the Wondra out.  My next step was I wanted to smooth out some of the chunks of veggies and potatoes, so I used my Immersion Blender (another awesome wedding present).

 I served the soup with Low Fat Sour Cream and Pecorino Romano Cheese (the cheese is a great addition, and it's something I use in place of adding salt to the soup).

We ate this dish alongside a great 2005 Israeli Merlot and a Grilled Steak that I marinated in Worcestershire, Soy Sauce, Hoisen, Garlic and Ginger.

Although soup is not usually a dish people eat in the summer, this soup is light and refreshing and is actually delicious cold as well...and I would know this because I was picking at the leftovers all night last night :) ENJOY!