The idea for this corn chowder recipe came from a church cookbook. Seeing as how I have about 20-30 of them, I get lots of ideas there. 🙂 Some of the ideas turn out good. Some of them don’t turn out at all and I have to scrape them out with the assistance of a chisel and a sledgehammer.
I used to feel bad about this fact – until I read that most great chefs get their groundbreaking ideas from something they see somewhere else. They just put their spin on it, add something new, or use a different technique. So, if a chef can do it, so can I! Take a seat, Chef Boyardee! After all, no recipe will ever come out that hasn’t been made before. I just have to Stacify them.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9
The original corn chowder recipe called for: margarine, hash brown patties, cream style corn in a can, and cream of mushroom soup. Well, I don’t use margarine (what’s the point?), cream style corn in can reminds me of something Dottie threw up (sorry for the visual again), I don’t buy hash brown patties, and well, you know I make my cream-of soups.
I totally understand the lure of using all these pre-prepped ingredients. They are easy. You just chuck them in your crock, give a little stir, and you’re done. It’s like its own mini miracle. But really, you don’t need that. Making things from scratch really isn’t HARD…it just takes advance planning. Buy frozen corn instead of canned – buy potatoes instead of hash browns – make your own cream soup. It’s not hard – and guess what? It’s probably CHEAPER! Whew – I felt the Spirit – did you feel that?
NOTE: This was my last bag of frozen conventional corn. We’ve switched to organic corn products because how of we feel about GMO products…and almost all corn is GMO now. I thought that organic corn would be a lot more than regular, but it’s not. At my store it was only $.20 more a bag. Not too shabby. Some organic item prices make me cry and feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. This was a surprising discovery. This is why we are Poorganic.
Yes, it takes more time to chop veggies yourself versus adding a can of something-something. But, a potato is a potato is a potato. Can you tell me what’s in your hash brown patties? I think if you read the ingredients, you might be surprised. They’re putting salt and sugar in everything these days. Do you know why? I recently read in The Kitchen Counter Cooking School that manufacturers actually formulate their products to make you crave more – they create items that don’t fill you up and make you crave more so you buy tons of their products. CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY!
Switching to potatoes instead of potato products is such an easy change to make – it falls in line with my Change One Thing At a Time philosophy. And guess what? Potatoes are almost always cheaper than their processed counterparts. BOOYA!
Most of the time, when a recipe calls for cream of whoknowswhat, I can use sour cream with great results. CREAM-of and sour CREAM. See? It makes perfect sense to me. I know – your mind is totally blown right now. Cream all around! I love cream – it makes life happy. Butter is made from cream. It all makes sense now. I must stop before I get too giddy!
So, anyway…here is a yummy corn chowder. Proof that SAD (Standard American Diet) recipes are easy to convert to whole-food cheap recipes…most of the time. There are always exceptions – thankfully this wasn’t one of them, otherwise there would be no post today.
Crock Pot Corn Chowder
- 3 cups frozen corn
- 2 cups milk
- 2 cups chopped potato
- small onion, chopped
- red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt (may need more if you like salty food – I do!)
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 cup sour cream
- Combine corn, milk, potato, onion, pepper, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a 4 quart crock.
- Cover and cook on low 8 hours.
- Stir in sour cream. Eat. With cornbread. It makes sense.
Yield: 4 servings
This sounds great ! Thanks for linking up at our Gluten Free Fridays party! I have tweeted and pinned your entry to our Gluten Free Fridays board on Pinterest! 🙂
Hope your week is great! Can’t wait to see what you link up this week!
Cindy from vegetarianmamma.com
I’ve been in the mood for corn chowder, but most of the recipes call for the canned corn that I don’t want to use. Another one used corn cobs to thicken the soup and since it’s the middle of winter, I do not have any fresh corn on the cob. This looks like a delicious soup that I could actually make. Novel concept!
Your chowder looks wonderful and so simple to put together. Glad you brought it by foodie friday.
I just found dinner for tomorrow! Yippee 🙂
Hooray!
I think I will make this, this weekend it looks so good!
I hope you love it!
Wow the sour cream tip is a lifesaver! Mind blown 🙂
I KNOW!!! 🙂
I haven’t made this in awhile. My recipe comes from a cookbook found at a restaurant (now closed) in a historic small town in Illinois. Your corn chowder looks wonderful. I will have to try it. Never made it in a crockpot. I love crockpot meals.
I find the best recipes in church cookbooks.
I know, me too – they are classic!
Corn Chowder is one of those homely filling meals I love in Winter. And you are right. Why use those other ingredients when it really is so easy to make.
Chowder and winter are a match made in heaven.
I love that you took a recipe that uses all premade ingredients and transformed it into something much healthier (and cheaper). I have a good corn chowder recipe but this looks different enough that we could do both! Thanks!
Corn Chowder – I mean, can we really have it too much? I think not.
This sounds great! I just got a crockpot and have been looking for vegetarian recipes for it, and I’m finding a lot that involve canned and packaged crud. Why on earth bother to use a crockpot on canned vegetables or beans, which are already cooked?? But when you can start with frozen corn (and maybe the onion, potato, and/or red pepper could be frozen, too?) it’s convenient while still being healthy.
You might want to check out my Crock Pot index. I think I might have a few more that would work for you. 🙂 http://www.stacymakescents.com/slowcooker
We tried the recipe, and it was terrific! I linked to it when posting our four-week menu.
Funny, I didn’t read this until today, when I was vaguely thinking potato soup for tonight. I found exactly 3 cups of corn in the freezer – fate! It is cooking away now. I believe I will crumble some cooked bacon on the top before serving. 🙂
I love that kind of fate – especially when you add bacon to the mix. Makes it almost spiritual. 😉
I made this on Saturday. I added a touch of cayenne (1/4-1/2 tsp to taste) to give it a kick and topped with shredded cheddar. YUMMY!!!
Kick is always good – unless it’s in the pants.
I love this! It was the perfect thing to put in my crockpot on this cold winter day. I have tried several of your recipes and this is definitely a favorite. Thank you!
WOOOHOOOO!
Stacy, I’m crazy about your recipes and I love your other info. I only have one problem…when I read from your site (which I already subscribe to) and your “subscription/sign-up page” pops up, I can’t get it to go away so I end up just not being able to finish the page. I usually read from my phone and prefer to use it in landscape position. If I turn it upright, the pop-up goes away but then the print is too small to read comfortably. Any suggestions? Thanks!
There should be an X in the upper right of the box to let you close it. If you’re finding text too small double tap on your phone screen to zoom to fit the screen. Let me know if these don’t work for you.
Thx so much for sharing this on Friday frenzy. It looks perfect for all these cold days
I was just thinking the other day that I’d like some corn chowder! We’re lactose intolerant here, so no sour cream. I usually use plain yogurt instead of sour cream. Do you think it would work in this? By the way, I love your “cream connection”. So simple… =)
Totally – I use those interchangeably all the time. 🙂
Cream Corn was my only vegetable growing up. Yuck! Yay for non-GMO corn.
I never had cream corn until I was older – and it was just to put into a recipe. Just regular corn is the way to go for me! 🙂
This looks great and will put on menu for week – and easy – thanks for the tip about the corn – I am going to definitely look for the organic corn now – hopefully it is as reasonable here on the west coast of Canada
I have heard from friends that prices in Canada are a lot more than here…but hopefully you find the same thing I did!
I find it is a bit pricier but the flavor difference is amazing. Especially conventional vs organic peas!
This looks so delicious! And I must say I love your posts. They always make me smile 🙂 <– see?! By the way, do you mill your corn meal yourself or do you purchase it somewhere?
I mill it – popcorn. 🙂
Hey, I never would have thought to replace cream-of-what’sit-soup with SOUR CREAM! What’s wrong with me? Thanks!
Just think “cream.” 🙂
I have always looked at cookbooks as idea books. I rarely follow a recipe exactly. This quote of Thomas Jefferson sums up this thought perfectly, “A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn’t be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational, it should be a guide.” Love how you incorporate this into the recipes you share. This soups looks yummy, but oh, so many carbs! The family will love it, but I may have to pass for myself.
🙂 We love carbs over here. We find our health and happiness is better when we eat them in abundance. And I LOVE that quote!!! Thank you for sharing!
Oh My Gosh! This looks waaaayyyy too easy! 🙂 Must try. Thanks for posting this.
You’re welcome!
Would this work with coconut milk? I haven’t tried to use it in a slow cooker recipe yet. Thanks, sounds great
I wouldn’t use coconut milk because I think it’s kinda strong in taste. I would use unflavored almond milk instead. 🙂