A Corny Blog Post

Last week we have a surprise cold front move in, making summer feel more like early spring! I happened to be out shopping for Honeymoon dresses (more on them in a future post), and found myself shivering as I trudged through the parking lots, shopping bags in tow!

Cooler weather always makes me crave soup. The hubs and I are big soup fans. We are always trying out new recipes, and I've posted a few of our favorites here and here. This night, however, I decided to try one of our favorites: corn chowder.

The recipe is courtesy of, you guessed it, Food Network!

Here's what you need for this tasty, refreshing, and light soup!

• 
  
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves only- I didn't use thyme since we didn't have any
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 6 cups canned vegetable stock- I just used two cartons (you get four cups per carton in case you didn't know)
• 2 cups heavy cream-you could probably substitute half and half for this too
• 2 Idaho potatoes, peeled and diced
• 6 ears corn
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves

Directions

Heat the butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and thyme and cook until the vegetables are good and soft, 8 to 10 minutes. 

Dust the vegetables with flour and stir to coat everything well. Pour in the vegetable stock and bring to a boil. The color will look a little funky due to the vegetable stock, but don't worry, the end result is sure purty.

Add the cream and the potatoes, bring to a boil and boil hard for about 7 minutes, until the potatoes break down (this will help to thicken the soup and give it a good texture). After they are "smushy" (I check using a pair or spring loaded tongs), use a stick blender to puree everything into one smooth texture. This is the extra step that I throw in to this recipe, and I find it makes the consistency of the soup much more pleasing. 

Cut the corn kernels off the cob and add to the soup (this takes FOREVER so do it ahead of time).

Season with salt and pepper and simmer until the corn is soft, about 10 to 12 minutes.

Stir in the parsley and give it another little drink of olive oil. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. I like to serve mine with warm, crusty bread. 

Did I mention I also found time to make some brownies? Oh, summer, how I love thee!