Corn and Cheese Chowder Recipe

Sunday morning Cal was sick and we were unable to go to church.  

I am so thankful for a church that asks people to not bring their children into the children's programs if they have a cough or a runny nose.  LOVE that!!!  Not that I love staying home from church (booooo!) but I do appreciate that they are making sure to keep germies at bay in a place that they could so easy run rampant.  

Anywho, after watching the Pioneer Woman while I should have been in a pew, I decided to make corn chowder (because she did and I think she's fun), but I have a recipe of my own, y'all...

 First I chop 3/4 of an onion and I snip 1/2 cup (estimatingly) into a pan with 3 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil.  Saute over medium-high heat until onions become translucent and the bacon renders its fat up for ya.

 While all of that is going on I chop 3/4 of a green pepper and 3/4 of a red pepper.  Dump in with a bag of frozen corn.  Sprinkle 3 tablespoons (or so) of flour onto everything and stir.  Now add 3 cups chicken stock (or for me as I was out, 3 cups of water and 3 bouillon cubes...its fancy up in here!)  Let simmer away...

You can grate the cheese to your hearts content while everything melds together in the pot, simmering gently away.  Use any cheese you like.  Use cheese to get rid of it. I don't care.  Just use cheese.  I think the one cheese that might give you fits though is Mozzarella just because of the stringyness of it when it's melted.  Maybe stay away from that guy.   I grate about 3 cups.  I dump about 2 and a half cups into the soup and reserve half a cup for sprinkling over bowls at the end. You want to turn your heat WAY down when you add the cheese.  You will also add 2 cups of half and half.  Or if you are me you can add 1 cup of cream and 1 cup of milk.  Do you know what cream and milk make?  Yep, you guessed it...half and half :)  You can also add 1/4 cup scallions (that's fancy for GREEN ONIONS)

Once the cheese has melted in the soup it's ready to eat.  Dig in folks.  You can sprinkle scallions and cheese on the top if you wish and enjoy!

Delish!  This recipe makes enough that we each had 2 bowls throughout the afternoon, Nick took it to work the next day for lunch, and I still have a large canning jar of it frozen in the freezer...perfect!

3 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. olive oil
3/4 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup bacon, sliced with scissors
3/4 of a green pepper, chopped
3/4 of a red pepper, chopped
16 oz. bag frozen corn
3 tbsp. flour
3 c. chicken stock
1 c. milk
1 c. cream
1/3 c. green onions, sliced
3 c. shredded cheese

Chop onion and snip bacon into a pan with butter and olive oil.  Saute over medium-high heat until onions become translucent and the bacon renders its fat. Add peppers and bag of frozen corn.  Sprinkle flour onto everything and stir.  Now add chicken stock and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Turn heat down to low and add 2 1/2 cup of the cheese; reserve 1/2 cup of cheese for garnish. Add 2 cups of half and half.  Or if you are me you can add 1 cup of cream and 1 cup of milk.  You can also add 1/4 cup scallions at this time or just save them all for garnish.  Once cheese has melted and everything has warmed through it is ready to serve.  Refrigerate leftovers.  

Once a Month Cooking

For the month of January I got this idea that I would do once-a-month cooking.  

What is it about you ask?  

Well the idea is that you spend one horrid day cooking EVERYTHING for that month, freeze it, and then you will have meals every night to just thaw out and eat.  So we did our grocery shopping...

 I used this book.  It was my mother-in-law's and I snagged it at a garage sale at her house.  I was very intrigued.  She told me that she had never used it.  I read it and thought I could do it  It assured me that you can fit a month of food into a standard freezer.

I was a little leery however, as our new fridge (isn't she beautiful???) has a pull out freezer drawer.  Also, the prepared meals weren't going to be the only thing in our freezer, so I just knew that there was no way it would all fit.

 So I did two week cooking.  Which this book has a plan for by the way.  Two actually.  A regular two week plan and a low fat two week plan.

I was going to do this after church on a Sunday, but we had a sick little one, so I was able to start early in the morning.  I had the meat out.  

 I chopped all of the vegetables for all of the recipes.  I had to chop a lot of onions!

 One of the first things I made was marinara.  Dumped everything in and let it cook for two hours.

Here it is all canned up.  It is so super yummy!

After this part I basically stopped taking pictures because I was in too much of a  rush to get things done.  Now I would consider myself pretty familiar with the kitchen.  I do a lot of cooking and baking.  So when it told me it would take all day I was a little over confident and thought that surely it wouldn't take me that long.  But seriously! Let me tell ya, I cooked from the 7a to the 7p.  Sunup to sun down, yo.  I was exhausted.  Exhausted!!!

I could not imagine doing a whole month as I only did 2 weeks, but it was so worth it.

As we approach the end of the month, we had one more meal and then we are done.  The two weeks of dinners has worked perfectly for us.  Here's why...I do like to use cooking as a way to express creativity.  Sometimes I like to play with cooking and try new things.  So I've probably cooked like that once a week.  The rest of the time has been us eating sandwiches on the run between classes we are carpooling too.  We also eat at Nick's mom and dad's once a week when they take one of the kiddos a week.  And a couple of times we have eaten out.

So that's it.  Once a month cooking for us was only two weeks worth of meals, but it was so worth it.  I can't wait to do it again because I am hoping (hoping being the key word here!) that I will get better and faster with the processes and will be able to accomplish more in less time.

For this next month I've been researching new recipes to use.  This FabuLESS website looks amazing!!!  I am a HUGE Money Saving Mom fan and she has some great recipes and advice as well.  And I haven't checked it out too much yet but I can't wait to dive into the Thriving Home's website about freezer cooking.

So there ya go! I know I talked about this before with some friends and I am so, so sorry that it has taken me about a month to get this written.  And please let me know if you have any questions.  I would love to help!  And I am getting ready to do my freezer cooking for next month, so maybe we can all do it together :)