Chedder Corn Chowder and Parmesan Rolls

This is the meal I made for mom while she was visiting. It was delicious and I'm sorry to say that I was so busy cooking that I missed a lot of photo opportunities. So you can just look at what I have and read the recipe. It was minorly time consuming but everything I do takes forever, especially when I've never made it before. The recipe I'll post will be the whole one, I halved it. The halved recipe made a ton of soup too so unless you're feeding 12 people, you probably should too. I tweaked it minorly as well.

Bacon! My first time working with bacon. Potatoes, onion, garlic, half and half, butter, chicken broth and corn. Oh and chedder. Whoops forgot to put it in the picture.

First I diced up the bacon and my onion and garlic.

While my bacon was cooking in the pot, I diced my potatoes.

Then I cooked my onion and garlic in the bacon fat. I had set aside the bacon for later.

Then I added flour and spices.

After my roux cooked for awhile, I added my potatoes and chicken broth.

After that simmered for about 15 minutes, I turned the heat down, added my frozen corn, the half and half and the cheese. I also didn't think it would be thick enough so I mixed a little flour with some water into a thickener and added that in for the last bit of cooking time. Mmmm. Oh and then I dumped all that bacon right back in. Yeah, you heard me.

And there you have it, chedder corn chowder!

...

Whoops, that's just a bird from the zoo. Let's try that again.

And there you have it, chedder corn chowder!

It also happened to be St Patrick's day so I had a green drink in honor. Key Lime Cream! Ooh it was yummy.

Oh and if you're wondering about those parm rolls. Well, they were nothing special. I had leftover frozen dough balls from when I made those amazingly delicious pepperoni rolls, so following the instructions for Pioneer Woman's buttered rosemary rolls, I proofed them in the oven, when they were done I covered them in melted butter and instead of rosemary, I used parmesan cheese.

And then I baked them.

And then we ate them! They were pull apart and nummy.

Now he's the soup recipe. I got the original from Ina Garten's cookbook but I found the recipe on foodnetwork.com to look at reviews. The biggest complaint was that it was too soupy at 12 cups of chicken broth, so when I halved the recipe I only added 4 cups instead of 6 to start. Then I realized I had a lot of potatoes and added the other two cups. And then probably a little more. You can always thicken a soup up if it's a bit thin.

Oh and even though I halved the recipe, I used a full pound of bacon. And skipped the olive oil. And used a lot less onion.

Chedder Corn Chowder (original recipe from Ina Garten)

• 8 ounces bacon, chopped
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 6 cups chopped yellow onions (4 large onions)
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
• 12 cups chicken stock
  
• 6 cups medium-diced white boiling potatoes, unpeeled (2 pounds)
• 10 cups corn kernels, fresh (10 ears) or frozen (3 pounds)
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1/2 pound sharp white chedder cheese, grated (I used regular)

In a large stockpot over medium-high heat, cook the bacon and olive oil until the bacon is crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and reserve. Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions and butter to the fat, and cook for 10 minutes, until the onions are translucent.

Stir in the flour, salt, pepper, and turmeric and cook for 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock and potatoes, bring to a boil, and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. If using fresh corn, cut the kernels off the cob and blanch them for 3 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain. (If using frozen corn you can skip this step.) Add the corn to the soup, then add the half-and-half and cheddar. Cook for 5 more minutes, until the cheese is melted. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Serve hot with a garnish of bacon.

If it isn't cheddery enough for you, add more chedder! If it needs more tumeric, add some more. Play with it and check your seasonings. Sean and mom loved it, and so did I.

Yum.

Make it for your mommy today!