Veggie chowder...

[mightyjesse]

Posting recipes from the bus... here goes...

Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a big pot on the stove and add:
3 peeled, diced potatoes
1 diced onion
1 diced stalk of celery
1 diced bell pepper (red or green)
Salt and pepper to taste.
Red pepper seeds add a nice kick but are not required...

Put a lid on the pot and sweat the veggies until onions are tender. Make sure they all get coated in oil so that they don't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.

Add 2 cups water (or enough to cover veggies) and bring to a boil. Allow boiling for 5 minutes and add 1 or 2 cups milk. Bring to boil again and reduce heat to medium.

Add 2 cans corn and 1 can baked beans or pork and beans WITH LIQUID.

Simmer until all veggies are soft. If desired (and I do..) add some slices of processed cheese to melt during the simmering phase... I put in 8... Try not to BOIL the soup after the cheese has been added or you'll have a weird texture problem. It'll still taste OK, but the cheese will not be creamy... it will be... cheese balls in milk water...

This recipe makes about 3 quarts and goes much faster than one would expect three quarts of soup to be eaten.

Super tastey served with a buttered english muffin or bagel. The best thing about this recipe is that it's EXTREMELY FORGIVING of "creative measuring". I change the veggie amounts based on what I'm hungry for that day. Just remember that too many beans make for a more mealy texture in the soup and not enough corn (or no corn at all) makes the soup significantly less sweet.

ENJOY!

Comments

[tinkcph.livejournal.com]

Fankoo! I guess I know what I'm having tonight!

[ragincajunette.livejournal.com]

Hmmm do you think I'd be able to substitute soy milk for regular milk in this? I'm always looking for new recipes for my friend who's recently become a vegan and I think this would be perfect (save for the cheese part obviously). :)

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'm not a fan of foods that pretend to be other foods, but you could do a little experiment... mix soy milk and water 1/2 and 1/2 and nuke them until they boil... check the taste and consistency against regular milk and water 1/2 and 1/2 boiled...


Fortunately, Zig's mom isn't vegan so I don't have this particular problem.

For a vegan, I would try a nice veggie thai curry. That calls for coconut milk, that is pretending to be coconut milk, so we're totally in the safe zone. I'll post my recipe for veggie curry if you like.

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

The point of the whole "boiling" experiment is to make sure that nothing weird happens to the consistency of the soy.

I like putting egg nog in my coffee, but I can't do it with *real* eggnog, because the raw egg *cooks* as soon as it hits the hot coffee... Thus giving you "scrambled egg coffee" which is probably the grossest thing I've ever "invented."

You'll want to make sure that the soy-milk doesn't do something similar.

If it DOES, you may want to prep the soup with everything BUT the milk, and then blend in the soy milk after the soup is finished cooking and has cooled down a bit.

[ragincajunette.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was kinda afraid of what soy milk would do in the boiling department compared to regular milk. And trust me, I'm not a huge fan of alternative foods when you could just eat the real thing, but eh, it's her lifestyle choice. :)

And ew, that scrambled egg coffee sounds disgusting! Seeing as how I'm such a huge fan of eggs (read: not in the least!), I can't imagine how gross that actually looked.

Thank you for the tips though. :) And the veggie curry recipe would be awesome as well!

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Curry recipe is up.

To be honest, I don't really like the flavor of the fish sauce, so I don't miss out at ALL when I skip it. (I have a whole bottle and usually I skip that step unless I'm trying to impress someone with my authentic flavors...)

For added protein you could probably add some tofu cubes and have everything taste just dandy.

[othelianna.livejournal.com]

"Cheese balls in milk water."

Holy gross. I've done that by accidentally boiling cheese sauce. Texture is naaasty. (I'm one of those weird people who still makes mac and cheese from scratch.)