Camacho Watcho

With the weather at -6 degrees right now, my mind is on comfort food. To be more specific, I keep thinking about soup. Cozy and comforting, a bowl of soup can warm up a cold day in no time. Sadly, I have not made soup in awhile so I’ve been digging through some recipes, hoping to get inspired. My plan is to go to the market this weekend to pull together something new…I’m thinking something with winter squash…I can’t wait.

While I was rummaging through my soup recipes, I came across a couple recipes that I made late in the fall. Given the weather, I think right now is a great time to catch up on these comfort soup recipes. The two soups that I want to share are for corn chowder and tomato-cilantro soup.

I’ll start with the corn chowder. I love this corn chowder recipe; it has definitely become of one my stand-bys when I’m in need for something tasty. I use Cascadian Farms frozen organic corn, so it’s easy to keep the ingredients on hand and pull out on a cold day. I like to make mine with large chunks of corn kernels and potato, so it has a hearty texture. In the picture, I actually substituted the chives for cilantro and used white wine instead of sherry, as another variation of the soup. There are more variations to try as well, making it spicy with cayenne pepper added to the onion mixture or throwing in some cooked chicken before serving. Every time I’ve made it slightly different and I’ve loved all the varieties.

The tomato-cilantro soup is a new recipe that I made for the first time this fall. It was from another food blog that I love, Orangette, so I knew it would be tasty! I followed her advice and used Muir Glen organic canned tomatoes and I doubled the amount of fresh lime juice, as I love citric flavors. It was fantastic…a combination of some of my favorite flavors. The link to this recipe is here. I served my soup with homemade tortilla chips and a quick guacamole. Yum!

Corn Chowder
from The Complete Vegetable Book
4 T. butter
1 large onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloved, minced
1/2 cup potato, finely diced
1 1/4 c. milk
6 T. medium sherry
2 1/2 c. vegetable or chicken broth
3 c. fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/3 c. light cream
2 t. lime juice
2 T. snipped chives
salt & pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and garlic and fry over gentle heat without coloring it. Add the diced potato and cook for a few minutes. Add the milk, sherry and broth, season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes.
Add the corn, return to a boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes.
When the soup is ready, pour 3/4 of it into a food processor (I do about 1/2) or blender and puree until smooth. Add the puree to the soup remaining in the pan and return to a boil.
Season with salt and pepper and stir in the cream and lime juice, adding a little extra of both if necessary to obtain desired consistency and taste. Heat thoroughly and stir in the chives.

Tags: recipe

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.