Yes, this post is way later than normal. No, it did not get mostly written last night like usual. Yes, it's chocked full of all kind of good stuff, so let's get to it!
Here's a recap of this past weekend. Because it was awesome.
Friday night The Hubbs got home REALLY late from a business trip. Which meant no Whole (craft)Cocktail for us this week but it meant time for me on the sofa watching HGTV all evening before he got home. Speaking of which, have you seen their Urban Oasis home that they're giving away in Atlanta? Don't even bother entering. I'm going to win it. And I'm going to use it as my crash pad when I'm in Atlanta. Because it's awesome. The views (it's a condo in Buckhead). The purple bedroom. The amazing shower and tub in the master bath. And that closet. To. Die. For. It's mine. I can feel it.
Back to the weekend: Saturday started with The Hubbs heading out early to catch the youngest two bonus daughter's softball games and get the oldest from her cross country meet and they all had lunch. That left me with a morning to myself. Breakfast a la Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Oatmeal. My current fav. A bit of work around the house and a trip to Lowes for a new trash can and lightbulbs then back home to hang my Iowa State flag (thanks, Stacey for picking that up for me while I was back home in Iowa) and to get ready for the game. Spoiler alert: Which we won! I headed out to meet the ISU Alumni of the Triangle Group and watch the game with them and it was awesome. Especially since we beat the University of Iowa hands down on their field. Nope, I'm not gloating though. (Yes, yes I actually am).
Back home for a BBQ and Sandra and Matt's. You remember them. Sandra gave us that awesome homemade sugar body scrub recipe and Matt most recently gave us the Corn and Scallop Chowder recipe (which he served at the BBQ, by the way). As always, the food was AMAZEBALLS, (Matt's BBQ is to DIE FOR. No really. It's that good.) as was the company.
And yesterday was a lazy day sitting around reading my People Mag (guilty pleasure) and surfing the net. The weather here either wasn't that great or was totally awesome, depending on if you like cool, cloudy fall days. I wasn't too thrilled with it, but it did allow me to lounge around after making a yummy "single pot" crock pot dinner (watch tomorrow's blog for that recipe) along with a yummy dessert that even the pickiest of the bonus daughters liked. And we got a surprise "Appy Pizza" from our other next door neighbors that was gone in about 13 seconds after it hit the table.
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Beatriz Da Costa
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Earlier in the day, to battle my feelings of laziness, I headed to the garden and used another of my mom's gardening tips. I took a banana peel (one of the bonus daughters had one for breakfast) and gently dug a shallow grave for it right under my rose bush. Yup. Turns out that the potassium in the banana peel is GREAT for roses and they just love it. Now, as long as I can keep The Red Dog from digging it up, we're good. And apparently my mom should write for Real Simple because she knew how to do this way before the magazine was around. And I guess that 30 seconds of digging in the garden wasn't enough exercise, so I took the dogs for a five mile walk. And my sister-in-law STILL beat me this week in numbers of steps counted using our FitBits. Watch out Bets, I'm after you this week!
And last but not least, I ordered this makeup bag from my own store. Because it's awesome. And the picture is from the Tiny Moon (a very short honeymoon we took immediately after we got married, since we took our official honeymoon months later) The Hubbs and I took at the Golden Isles in Georgia. You should go there. And you should get one of these makeup cases too.
Stop by tomorrow for the crock pot recipe and on Wednesday for the yummy (hint - this is a way to get your kids to eat stuff they normally wouldn't) chocolate dessert recipe. Until then, I'm heading back to my sofa to dream of my new crash pad and watch Love It Or List It for the 100th time. You're welcome.
Matt's back! Matt's back! Matt's back! And he's offered up another of his scrumdillyicious recipes for us - Corn and Scallop Chowder. With Fall quickly approaching and the dog days of summer upon us, this is beyond timely. And, as with everything Matt makes, beyond yummy. Plus, he's just in the knick of time, because I was struggling with what to share with you all this afternoon. I'll be busy roasting fifteen pounds of lamb hearts to grind into dog food. Again. You're welcome, Lark.
Without further adieu, I'm turning the wheel over to Matt.
The end of Summer and a young man’s fancy turns to comfort foods. I LOVE this time of year, not that I want to force Summer out the door or anything, I just love comfort food. This past Sunday was supposed to be a high in the 70’s and rainy all day. Now thats hardly "leaves falling and pumpkins appearing at every store" weather, but it would have been close enough to hunker down with a good movie or three and some Lasagna or Spag & Balls, Chicken Pot Pie, Mac & Cheese or Chowder. Trouble was that the weather man was wrong again and it was mid 90’s, sunny and humid. Reality be damned. We cranked the AC down to 66, turned on the gas fireplace and started to cook!
I wanted to use some of the great end of summer corn that's around and my fish monger, Scott Madden from Madden’s Seafood in North Raleigh, had some great dry packed scallops, so the dye was cast and Chowder was in my sights. This recipe uses the lobster butter that we made while creating the last recipe, Butter Poached Lobster Rolls. The other key ingredient is Lobster Stock. You can make your own using lobster shells and carrots, onion & celery or you can do what I do most of the time (unless I am making a Lobster Bisque and in that case you HAVE to make your own stock) which is use Better Than Bouillon Lobster Base. BTB Lobster Base is sold in the soup isle. The folks at BTB make all kinds of bases, like Chicken, Beef, Mushroom & Vegetable. Most supermarkets will carry the Beef and the Chicken, some carry Lobster. If you can not find BTB Lobster Base at your local store you can order it on Amazon for $5 or $6 a jar.
I call the Lobster Base a KEY ingredient, but truth be told, all ingredients are key. We are talking about food here. Who knows, it could be your last meal and if so don’t you want that meal to be the best it can be? I always cook like I am being executed later that night. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FOOD. So, keeping that in mind, get the best of all the ingredients you can find for this or any other recipe. I won’t even make this particular recipe in the winter or spring when fresh corn is unavailable. I smoke my own bacon in my own smoker. I like to cut the bacon chunks into pieces about the size of your fingernail square. It’s strange, but I thought when I moved to North Carolina that finding good chunks of bacon would be easy, but its not, so I make my own. If you can’t smoke your own bacon (which is easy by the way) then seek out a good chunk at your market or use salt pork or as a last resort use a good thick cut sliced bacon.
All that being said, you can obviously still make this recipe and use regular plain old butter. My brother in law Ray makes this recipe year round using frozen shoe peg corn. The point is is that the recipe as written is in my mind a 100 pointer. My brother Chris actually used it to win an award at the Boston Chowderfest many years ago. I wouldn’t change a thing here, but if you don’t mind a 90-95 point chowder then use regular butter and frozen corn and Oscar Meyer Thick Cut Bacon. It's still going to be outstanding. Maybe just not orgasm inducing.
Ok, so on to the ingredient list!
¾ cup smoked bacon, diced
⅓ cup lobster butter
½ cup onions, diced
½ cup leeks, white and pale green parts only, chopped
¼ cup celery, diced
¼ cup flour
1 ½ cups lobster stock
2 cups corn kernels, all white or white and yellow, from 3 or 4 ears
1 ½ cups half & half
¾ cup fresh sea (not bay) scallops, halved and then each half quartered
Celery leaves, chopped, as garnish if desired
Lightly brown the bacon in a medium sized pot over medium low heat. You don’t want to crisp the bacon up to much, you just want to lightly brown it. It should have a soft consistency when done, not crusty or hard to chew. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate. Drain off and discard all but a tablespoon of the bacon fat.
I chop the onions in a food processor. I chop them up with the leeks after I have rinsed them. You have to be careful with leeks as they can contain a good amount of sand. Chop off the bottom of the leek about ½ inch up from the base. Also discard the darker green top portion of the leek, leaving just the white and very pale green sections. Then slice the leek lengthwise and fan out the layers of each half under running cold water to wash away any sand. Then add them to the onions in the processor and give them 3 or 4 pulses to chop them up. I like to cut the celery by hand, I just like the consistency of size better. I’ll cut each piece lengthwise into 3 or 4 strips and then dice them.
Its a good idea at this point to prep your stock and scallops & strip your corn cobs too. Using a sharp knife and a low bowl or pot, stand an ear of corn on its end and slice the kernels away from the cob. Repeat with remaining ears until all have been stripped and you have 2 cups of kernels.
First thing to do with scallops is to remove the attached side mussel, if any. You can discard this tough side piece or do as I do and flip them to the dogs. Cut your scallop in half, creating two disks, then cut those disks into quarters, so that each sea scallop produces 8 fingernail sized pieces. On occasion you get mutant sized sea scallops, in which case you’ll probably want to cut each scallop into 12 pieces. Just think about the ideal size of the cooked scallop piece on a spoon with the rest of the chowder and slice accordingly.
A quick note here is to not do as I once did and think ‘If ¾ of a cup of scallops is good, then 1 ½ cups of scallops will be better”, because its not. Each ingredient works in concert with the other. Too much of one thing, no matter how yummy, will through the whole recipe off.
Using a small bowl or 2 cup Pyrex meaning cup, warm 1 ½ cups of water and 1 ½ teaspoons of BTB Lobster Base in the microwave or on the stovetop for 90 seconds or until lightly heated and mix well.
Add the lobster butter to the bacon pot over medium low heat and after it has melted, add the vegetables and sauté until translucent, but not brown. Make sure you scrape up the browned bits from the bacon as you stir the vegetables. Add the flour and stir to incorporate. Make sure you stir the roux for at least a minute or two to get rid of the starchy flavor, a wooden spatula works best for scraping the bottom and making sure nothing browns up.
Next add your heated lobster stock and stir until thickened, about 2 minutes.
Add the corn, half & half and scallops to the pot and heat gently, stirring often until the first evidence of steam and a light simmer appears. At this point turn off the heat and add the bacon back into the chowder. Cover the pot and let it sit for 15 minutes. This way you do not over cook the scallops which will make them rubbery. After 15 minutes season the chowder with salt and fresh ground pepper. I usually use about ½ teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper, but just go by your taste.
The amount of salt added to a meal is the about the most personal thing you can do to it, so I usually go light and let folks adjust the meal at the table.
I have actually been to a few restaurants where the won’t even put salt and pepper on the table because in the chef’s estimation, the meal is served perfectly seasoned. To me that is the height of arrogance as everyone’s taste buds are different, but I digress, lets finish up.
If desired chop a few celery leaves as a garnish and add to each bowl before serving. Serve with beer or a crisp white wine like a French Burgundian Chardonnay or an Italian Pinot Grigio. Pass good bread with this chowder too if desired. Serves 6.
See, I told you it looks/sounds/tastes amazing. As always. Go get your own C&SC (Corn and Scallop Chowder) fixin's and come back and let us know in the comments how it went.
And . . . . wait for it. . . . . you're welcome.
