Chowder

Chowder is a FAVORITE at our house! I call this "corn chowder" but as you can see it has potatoes and carrots and onions and celery along with the corn. There have been several recipes that I have made over the years and I have taken my favorite things and from each of those and created my own chowder recipe and that varies depending on what I have on hand.
So basically the recipe is this:

4-5 large pototes, peeled and diced
1 cup carrots chopped
1 cup celery chopped
1 medium onion chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1 can corn (or the equivalent in frozen corn)
1 can creamed corn
1 T. dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
About two cups of cream, half and half or milk (I usually just use milk)
Chopped ham or bacon -cooked and chopped(optional)
Fresh chopped parsley
1/2 cup white cooking wine -optional, I have been loving this in some soups lately!(If I use the cooking wine I add it very last and I omit the mustard)
Shredded cheese for topping

Put all the vegetables and garlic into a pot and add just enough water to cover. The less water you can get away with using for the veggies, the more milk you can use at the end! MMMMM. Boil until tender. Add the corn, mustard, salt and pepper, parsley and ham. Stir in milk or cream. Cook until heated.
Serve with shredded cheese on top.

I made this for dinner last night. We have cello lessons until 5:00 pm and I like to eat at 5:00, so at about 2:00 I chopped all the vegetables and put them into the pot, covered them with water and let them to sit. I threw the ham steak into the crock pot with a little garlic salt over the top. When we got home from cello I just boiled the veggies, chopped the ham and had it all
on the table in about 20 minutes.