Note to Self: Get Better Soon!

Let me ask you: what is more quintessentially winter-in-New-England than grey streets lined with grey snow and dull, lingering colds that are more depressing than acute? All of the above plus a steaming hot bowl of chowder, of course! While in summer the ultimate dinner is lobster or steamers and fresh corn on the cob dunked in molten butter, in winter we have the homier version of the same seafood and/or corn swimming in thick milk. I remember my first time having chowder when I was young-- on winter weekends after hours of shoveling (or just messing around in the snow), my family would usually have hot soup for lunch. The way it used to be was that my parents would have clam chowder (Snow's, of course), and us kids would clamor over having a pot of tomato soup (obviously Campbell's) with grilled cheese (the orange kind preferably). One particular day, however, of coming back from the cold, I requested clam chowder with my parents when asked, proving some forgotten point to my little brothers by that far more "mature" choice. And what do you know, I loved it and have ever since.

When I'm at school and feeling crummy, whether due to sickness or stress or just general malaise, chowder is always what I crave. Now like most people I don't tend to have a crate of clams lying around, which means I make my soup with corn.

Get-Better Corn Chowder

1 medium potato

1 small carrot

1 C corn (frozen or fresh)

1/2 a small onion

2 cloves garlic

1 inch fresh ginger

2 T olive oil or butter

~2 T flour

~4 C milk

salt, parsley, rosemary, and paprika to taste

Slice the garlic, ginger, onion, and carrot pretty thin, and sweat out in the oil or butter. When they're soft, add the flour and mix well. Keep pushing around the mixture until the flour has toasted-- it'll smell like pie crust. Add milk and bring to a boil, stirring regularly. Dice the potato into small cubes and add it to the soup once it has boiled for about half a minute. Bring it up to a boil again and then reduce to a very low simmer. A minute or two before the potatoes are fork tender, add in the corn, salt, paprika, and parsley. Your chowder will be done whenever you say it is, at this point.

Note: for thicker chowder, add more flour. For thinner, more milk. Be aware that it will thicken as it cools, though. Also, when the roux and milk first come to a boil, it will rise A LOT (until you put the potato in), so use a bigger pot than you think you'll need. 

The spices in this chowder are not traditional, I realize. Chowder is usually started by rendering bacon fat though, and without bacon I feel like the soup really needs a little something to keep it from tasting like just veggies in milk. If you're dubious about the ginger, you can leave it out, but I think it adds a really nice subtle sweetness that compliments the corn. Paprika is also imparts a nice, warm flavor that also makes up for the lack of bacon-- it's another one of those flavors I always seem to want when I'm sick. You can also add whatever seafood you like to the basic chowder recipe and it'll be glorious.

And just as a note to my mom: no I don't eat potatoes much, but 90% of the time when I do it's in a bi-weekly pot of chowder ;)

Later in the day I prepared myself another simple comfort food, brown rice and peas with a little milk, salt, and butter. Everyone has something in particular that they make when they're feeling sick or stressed that's kind of weird for anyone else... I don't know if this is particularly "weird", but I think my intense rice craving when I'm grumpy probably is.

It also turned out that I ran out of bread today. Since this week's batch of granola was "accidentally stolen", I've been eating mostly toast and jam instead. I just threw this loaf together between doing other things tonight.

It certainly looks pretty professional. I haven't had a really ugly one in a while! I kind of winged this recipe... I'm cleaning out the fridge of leftovers in preparation for grocery shopping soon, and I had one egg and about a cup of plain yogurt left. So this was a slightly sweet loaf made from those and a bit of brown sugar and honey.

I also had a handful of walnuts and pecans leftover, so I chopped those very fine, mixed them with about a tablespoon of butter, some brown sugar, and cinnamon, then rolled the mixture up into the bread. Delicious.