Corn Chowder

Every winter I look at one of my favorite cookbooks, My Father's Daughter, to look for soup recipes and every year I see Gwyneth's Corn Chowder and think that I need to remember to make it in the summer when the corn is fresh.  Since Labor Day was a bit cloudy and rainy this year, I decided a summer soup would be perfect, and since I've really been wanting to get back into cooking, a lazy long weekend was the perfect opportunity.  This soup was super easy to put together - just some chopping and simmering - but had tons of flavor and was perfect paired with a small side salad.  When I heated up the leftovers I added a splash more of milk to make it not as thick, but other than that the soup was just what I needed to hang on to summer a little bit longer while welcoming in my favorite season, Fall.

Corn Chowder

Ingredients
2 slices bacon, finely diced
2 medium shallots, peeled and finely diced
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
Kernels from 6 fresh ears of corn, cobs reserved
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups Vegetable Stock
1 cup milk

Instructions
1. Cook bacon in large soup pot over medium heat until beginning to brown.  Add shallots, onion, thyme, and bay leaf and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add corn kernels, salt and pepper, stirring together and cook for 1 minute.
3. Add stock, milk, and a few corn cobs, bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer about 30 minutes until corn is cooked through.
4. Remove corn cobs.  With immersion blender, blend just a portion of soup to thicken {alternately, you can ladle out about 1 cup of soup and blend in regular blender, then return to soup}.
4.  Season with salt and pepper and serve topped with more thyme or other herbs.

Serves 4

adapted from My Father's Daughter

xoxo,
stephanie marie