Erin’s Easy Eats

I’m trying to find new vegetarian recipes that I enjoy that don’t involve meat substitutes.  Those were a staple of mine when I lived as a vegetarian for three years or so… I just used Boca crumbles and Quorn chicken.  This soup, adapted from Simply Recipes, makes use of the Eastern shore’s abundance of corn this time of year.  While some people in the house were not too fond of this, I certainly liked it, and froze a portion of it to see how well it will hold up, and to have this really light summer taste sometime when all of this great produce has gone the way of the frost.  That sounds grim.  This is un-grim food.

• 1 Tbs butter
• 1 chopped yellow onion
• 1/2 carrot chopped (about 5 baby carrots, I figured)
• 1 chopped celery stalk
• 3 ears corn, kernels removed, cobs reserved
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 1/2 c. milk (I used 1%)
• 1 Yukon gold potato, peeled and diced
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1/2 tsp. fresh thyme
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in a large saucepan.  Add onion and sautee 4-5 minutes.  Add carrot and celery and continue cooking another 4-5.  Break the corn cobs in half and add them to the saucepan.  Add milk and bay leaf.  Recuce heat to prevent scalding, cover, and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occaionsally to prevent the milk from scalding.  (Use the lowest heat you can but keep it simmering.)  Discard corn cobs and bay leaf.  Raise heat, add potatoes, red pepper, salt and pepper to taste, and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes or until potatoes are almost fork tender.  Add thyme and corn kernals, let cook 5 minutes and serve.  Remove about 2 cups of the soup and blend with an immersion blender, add back to main pan.  Garnish with cilantro and sour cream, if desired.

Tags: chowder, corn, soup, vegetarian