Dried thyme and freezer corn drive the flavor in this chowder.
On the coldest days of winter, we turn to our hearty soup and stew recipes here at We Grow. In our attempt to expand our use of home grown ingredients, we’ve fallen across a really tasty cream based soup we would like to share with you. We dried a lot of thyme this summer, raised our own hogs, and packed away enough veggies for an apocalypse. Short of having a cow for cream, we can take credit for every ingredient here on our farm. We may be cheating a bit by not mentioning the ingredients within our freezer corn recipe, but I’ll let you check it out and decide if I am in violation of our local food obligation.
Ingredients
- 2 cups diced cooked ham
- 1 small onion coarsely chopped
- 2 cups freezer corn
- 1 large or 2 medium potatoes cut into 1 inch cubes
- 1 cup sliced carrots
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 2 cups broccoli florets
- 1 cup ham soup stock (original recipe suggest using a can of cream of celery soup)
- 1 1/2 cups cream or milk
Combine all the ingredients, except broccoli and milk. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until carrots and potatoes are nearly done. Add broccoli and cream for the last 5-10 minutes of cooking time. Chowder is ready when veggies are all tender, so plan cook times based on your varieties.
What we do to make this recipe “famous”:
- I like my onions well cooked, so I fry them in the dutch oven with the ham for a few minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients.
- When it comes time to add the veggies, I throw the carrots in the boil before the potatoes to give them a head start. That way, both root veggies are done at the same time.
- Our recipe for freezer corn includes butter and sugar and this creates a unique, slightly sweet flavor when combined with the thyme that would not be achieved with a store bought frozen corn.
- Potatoes are more flavorful with their skins left on, so we scrub ’em down and leave the skins on whenever possible.