Chicken, Corn, and Potato Chowder

This recipe is one that I semi-adapted from Cookin’ Canuck. Did you know that’s Canadian, eh? I did a little changing of the ingredient amounts to suit it better to our house. I love Canadians! Except, as my husband learned on his first trip up there, they don’t eat biscuits. Bless their hearts. We need milk, garlic powder, creamed corn, frozen corn, chopped green chilies, flour, chicken broth, chicken, bacon, potatoes, red peppers, onion, and cheese. I didn’t want to run to the basement to get chicken broth, so I just used water and bouillon cubes. I do that a lot. I always keep bouillon around. It worked for my Mama, and it works for me. I don’t always have a chicken carcass around to make chicken stock……..it’s against community rules to have chickens here. But you better believe when I bust outta this joint I’m gonna have me some chickens!

Get out your soup pot and throw in your chicken, red peppers, onion, and garlic powder. Cook them until the chicken turns white and you think it’s done. You don’t’ have to cut into it to check….it’s going to cook for a bit longer, so it will definitely get done in the middle. Ya know, I’m a little paranoid about raw chicken. Okay, so I’m a LOT paranoid about raw chicken. After I fiddle with it, I feel like I need to take a bath in disinfectant. I’m not sure how that came to be. Anyway, I hate using bleach. Blech! My friend Brandy at Young in the Mountains told me that I didn’t need to fear the chicken juice! Did you know you can clean it up with white vinegar? YES! It’s TRUE! I was so excited that I fixed chicken that same day…..and cleaned it up with white vinegar.  Chicken juice is no longer safe in this house. I will take it OUT!

Throw in the chilies and cook them for about a minute. We just want them to get hot. Hot as in temperature. We already know they’re tasty hot. Hot mama!

Pour in your broth and add the chopped potatoes. In my case, I plopped in bouillon cubes and water with my potatoes. You could leave the skin on your potatoes if you want but I really didn’t want to push Jamey too far. It’s hard to leave your chicken nugget comfort zone.

Put your pot lid on and let the soup simmer about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are done. We don’t want them mushy, but we do want them soft. I have to leave the lid of this pot a little off on the side because if I don’t, it dances around  while it simmers. The constant jiggling of the lid sorta drives me crazy. I really need that Le Creuset pot y’all.

When the potatoes are done, add the creamed corn and the frozen corn. Stir it up and put the lid back on. The frozen corn needs some thaw time.

In a small bowl, put your flour. Get out your mini whisk and get ready. Add the milk…….a little bit at a time. Whisk it very well to make sure you get rid of all the lumps. I hate lumps in my soup. Yuck! It’s nasty biting into a big hunk of flour that you think is chicken. It’s a nasty joke.

I always make a flour paste first before I add all the milk. I want to insure that I’m not going to get little flour lumps. Lumps = bad. So, when it looks like this I’ll start to add the rest of the milk, whisking the whole time to make a nice smooth mixture. Have I ever told y’all that I love my mini whisk?

Okay, now we need to add this flour mixture slowly to the soup. It’s our thickener. While you’re pouring it in, make sure you’re stirring the whole time. If you plop it all in at once and don’t stir, you’ll have a big lump of flour paste. Ew.  When you’re done, make sure you stir the pot a lot. If you don’t, it’ll get really thick and clumpy on the bottom and it will burn. It will. Trust me. If you get distracted by a puking dog or by your daughter who might be trying to throw something into the toilet, you will surely burn the bottom of your pot. I’m just sayin’.

I added fresh ground pepper to mine. I love fresh pepper! It will change your life. It’s not even comparable to the stuff in the can…….but I still use the stuff in the can. Barry made this pepper grinder for me. He does a lot of woodworking and he DOES take orders. 🙂

It will take about 15 minutes for your soup to get nice and thick. It looks very pretty. Almost too pretty to eat. Ha, ha! Wasn’t that funny? Good grief. NOTHING is too pretty to eat. Unless it’s just something pretty and not meant to be eaten. Then yeah, it’s too pretty to eat.

Magical things are happening right here. Put your cheese and bacon in when it gets thick. Stir it around and let the cheese melt. Oh heavens. Melting cheese.

And there it is folks…..miracle soup. Even Annie likes it and it’s not too spicy. If you want it spicier, you can add cayenne pepper. I’m trying to take it slow and let Annie work up to hotter food. She’s doing pretty good with it right now. We love that Mexican Canadian food.