Sweet Corn Chowder - The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook

Last night I tried another new recipe from The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook: Food To Live By.  You're probably thinking, two soups in one week?  What can I say, I was in a soup kind of mood when I went to the grocery store this weekend!

I quite enjoyed this soup.  Not as flavourful as the Tuscan White Bean Stew, but it is hearty and the crisp corn almost makes it refreshing.  It could also be that it was lacking a bit of flavour because I used dried Thyme instead of fresh, and I forgot to season with salt and pepper at the end.  Regardless, if you're in a corn chowder mood, I'd recommend trying this recipe.

The recipe I used is very similar to this one: http://www.ebfarm.com/recipes/sweet-and-spicy-corn-chowder.  However, trade a sprig of fresh thyme for the dried thyme, exclude the chili pepper, swap the cream for 1.5 cups of half and half, and add a bay leaf.  In terms of directions, when you add the stock, also add the thyme and bay leaf.  After the soup has simmered, turn the heat off and let the flavours of the soup mellow until it's stopped simmering.  Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprig and add the bacon, corn kernels and half and half.  Warm the chowder over low heat until it's your desired temperature.  Lastly, season with salt and pepper, if desired.

Something interesting I learned while making this soup is that it's a lot easier to cut the corn kernels off the cob if you put the corn on a 45 degree angle with one end of the corn in the bottom of a mixing bowl.  Instead of the kernels popping all over the counter, they fall right into your bowl.  I'd also highly recomment the Kitchen Basics stock.  It's one of the first sodium-free stocks I've found with really good flavour.

Enjoy!