corn, bacon and potato chowder

Please please please go look at the photo on the site where I originally found the recipe.  It looks much more appetizing, and might make you actually want to make the soup!

I LOVE soup.  A lot.  I'm not sure why but there is just something about it.  Especially more of a creamy soup.  I'm the dork who will be ordering the broccoli cheese soup at Panera in July when it is 102 degrees.  I love soup that much.  I don't think Chris likes soup as much as I do, so we rarely cook it as a meal.  But this had potatoes and bacon in the title, so I figured it wouldn't be too tough to convince him to eat it.

I'll admit, when I first started putting the ingredients together, I thought, ok so I have a whole bunch of vegetables in some hot milk.  Stellar.  I'm sure that will be delicious.  But you know what?  It was.  The corn gives the soup such a nice flavor.  Don't mind the fact that we used frozen corn and not yukon gold potatoes.  I'm sure the yukons would have made the soup even tastier.  I actually wanted more potato in my soup, so maybe throw in an extra as well?  Or one that has just been chopped as opposed to mashed...

This chowder was good enough that our friend Chris, who generally gives vegetables and anything besides pizza or chicken tenders the side eye, ate two whole bowls.  I was astonished!  Did you hear that Jennifer??  Chris pretty much ate two bowls of vegetables.  Impressive!

Overall I highly recommend this dish.  It was incredibly easy to put together (just takes time to chop up your veggies) and was great leftover the next day.  The site also notes you can feel free to use your favorite fresh veggies like asparagus and broccoli instead of (or in addition to!) the red pepper

Corn, Bacon and Potato Chowder
from the Weight Watchers website

Ingredients

• 1 medium uncooked yukon gold potato
• 1/2 cup uncooked celery, chopped
• 1/4 cup uncooked onion, chopped
• 4 pieces corn on the cob, kernels removed with a knife (or 2 cups frozen corn kernels)
• 1 cup sweet red pepper, diced (or 1 cup frozen diced bell pepper pieces)
• 4 oz uncooked Canadian style bacon, diced
• 2 cups fat-free skim milk
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, or to taste (I omitted this)

Directions

1. Pierce potato in several places with a fork; microwave on high power until tender, turning over once, about 8 minutes.  Allow to cool; peel and mash.
2. Meanwhile, coat a large saucepan with cooking spray.  Add celery, onion, corn and red pepper; saute over medium-high heat for 5 minutes.
3. Stir back and milk into saucepan; stir in mashed potato and mix well.  Season with salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce; stir to combine.  Cover and simmer 10 minutes (do not allow to boil).

Enjoy!