"Who's Cooking Soup?"

So says Creed on an episdoe of the office--we can't remember which episode, but Gary and his friends used to quote this line often.

The answer?  Us!  Again.  We tried another new soup recipe this evening.  This time I found it on pinterest.  (pinterest is like an internet bulletin board--it's awesome for things like recipes!).

The recipe originated here and is called Southern Chicken and Corn Chowder.  Here's how it went down:

First, we Gary chopped the veggies that would form the base of the soup--carrots, celery, onion.  We added those to a soup pot with olive oil, and added minced garlic (we buy the huge plastic container of minced garlic and go through one surprisingly quickly).

Those cooked down for about 5 minutes, when we added a diced jalapeno.  After that cooked for a minute we added 2-3 diced chicken breasts (raw).  This is when I took over the cooking process!  I added a good amount of freshly cracked pepper (we use a five peppercorn blend from Penzey's spices) and some salt.  The recipe didn't call for salt or pepper anywhere--an oversight in my opinion.  This then got covered with water, about two small water glasses full, and simmered for 20 minutes to cook the chicken.

Then we added two cups of milk + two TBs of flour and two cans of creamed corn--the recipe called for 20oz of frozen, but we just used 2 14.5oz cans instead.  And we added the 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme called for in the recipe.  It simmered again for 20 minutes (more like 30-40).

At this point, we both tasted the soup.  It was good, but just tasted like canned corn.  So, Gary suggested we add some Tabasco Chipotle hot sauce.  We did, probably a TB worth?  Not sure.  We also added more salt, just a couple pinches.  Still, it was just missing something.  So I thought maybe we should add some lemon juice--sounds crazy, but it just needed some acid/brightness to cut through the richness of the soup chowder.  We only added about one quarter to one half a teaspoon, I'd guess, but it really helped.

The final product:

Bowl of chowder and small salad

The final verdict?

It was a good meal once we doctored it up.  The original recipe provided a good base, but was just "ok" in overall flavor for our taste.  Also, next time I would shred the chicken instead of cube (or just leave it out entirely!).  I also really wanted potatoes in this--I just always think of corn chowder with potatoes.  Every time I spooned up a chunk of chicken I was really disappointed it wasn't a potato!

We'll keep eating it the next couple days and it was worth it.

UPDATE!  I forgot about the bacon called for in the recipe!  Now, as blasphemous as this may sound, I don't really care for bacon anymore.  So we subbed diced pancetta.  We rendered/browned it and added it to the chowder before the final simmer.