Saturday, January 25, 2014

My Favorite Soup….

I LOVE Clam Chowder! I like the New England version and the Manhattan version.  We have a restaurant that makes the best Manhattan Clam Chowder I have ever had, and I go there on every birthday…just for the soup! The New England Clam Chowder that I like around here comes from Red Robin and a little Greek restaurant.  They are not seafood restaurants. Isn’t that funny?

I have always wanted to try to make my own chowder, but my boys have an aversion to all things shell fish, so I have never bothered.  As I was perusing recipes on Pinterest, I found a really easy recipe for both versions of the chowder.  I decided I’d make it for lunch someday and my girl and I would get to enjoy it all ourselves! Today was that day.  I found a great easy recipe at Food.com, and tweaked it a bit to fit my tastes.  It called for dill weed, and this girl DOES NOT LIKE dill weed. Blech…

There was a little prep time involved in this soup, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  It all came together in less than an hour.  Though I don’t have a picture of the step by step process (I really need to start doing that), I have a picture of the finished soup, and it was DELICIOUS!

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I did tweak my soup a bit from the original recipe.  I didn’t use the dill that the recipe called for, as I said before.  I used turkey bacon instead of regular bacon.  It didn’t crisp up like normal bacon, but it was SO good in this soup.  Morgan, our bacon lover, said it was great.  I will probably stick with turkey bacon from now on!

Here is the recipe…my version.  If you want the real thing visit Food.com and search for…

Thick and Creamy New England Clam Chowder

Ingredients:

6-7 pieces turkey bacon cut into small pieces
1 medium onion chopped
2 (10-ounce) cans baby clams with juice reserved
6-7 potatoes cubed
2 (10 3/4-ounce) cans cream of celery soup
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter

Method: Add bacon to sauce pan and cook on medium low heat until crispy (turkey bacon does not really get crisp…just cook until it looks done).  Add onion and cook until translucent.  Add clam juice from both cans. Add potatoes.  Cook and cover until potatoes are fork tender, about 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally so potatoes won't stick (you might need to add a little liquid to keep the sticking from happening). Add clams, soup, cream, and milk. Stir together. Add butter and let melt into the chowder. Cook for about 30-45 minutes or until thickened.  Stir occasionally.

Note: The original recipe called for 2 – 5 ounce cans of clam with their juices.  I doubled it.  I hate when I have clam chowder in a restaurant and there is hardly any clam in it.  So I took care of that and doubled the clams.  It did not overpower at all, and was DELICIOUS! I actually forgot the 1 tbsp of butter in my soup, but will do that next time.  I guess it will add a tiny bit of richness to the soup. I am not a fan of condensed soups per se, but I do love cream of celery, so I was thrilled to see it is in this recipe.  I diced my potatoes quite small, so they cooked faster.  Once all of the ingredients were in the pot, I did not cook the soup for the 30-45 minutes the recipe suggested.  I just waited until it was heated through and the clams were cooked.  We grabbed the deepest bowls we could find and filled them up with this yummy goodness.  It is a VERY filling soup, so one bowl was plenty.  Since my girl and I are the only ones eating it, we have leftovers for the weekend!

I was so happy with the results of my first try making this chowder.  It was seriously one of the best I’ve tasted, and I will be making it often! Yum!

 

 

1 comment:

Kelly said...

Your blog is looking so fresh and pretty, Kathy! My favorite color.