Bacon-Grilled Corn Chowder with Grilled Shrimp

Yeah, we subscribe to a "few" cooking magazines...

 A small sample of just one week's food subscription arrivals

it's just what we do..they inspire us (although now being the ipad junkies that we are we wonder how long it will be before we go to magazine apps only... who knows?) To be honest I really do enjoy coming home to the only non-bill item that arrives in the mail being my new issue of whichever magazine it is that day. Some days it ends up being 2-3 issues in one day. That's a smorgasbord kind of day.

When I have the luxury of some time my favorite thing to do is go through and tag all of the recipes that I want to make. With our week's off being rapidly on the decrease...actually it's closer to days now before I start going back to school a few days a week... I know I want to be strategic with the time I have to cook and set aside time to cook some of the things that are making our mouths water.

One recent recipe is from Cooking Light for Bacon-Corn Chowder with Shrimp. This happens to be one of their Super Fast 20 minute recipes so I knew this was doable.

We decided since it is supposed to be summer, whether the thermometer is showing it or not, we had to add some grilling component to the recipe. So we decided to grill both the corn and the shrimp for the chowder.

We started by grilling the corn...

and then the shrimp, but only lightly,

knowing the hot soup will cook it more and

there is nothing worse than tough shrimp.

Overall the chowder really came together easily, hence the Super Fast label, obviously the grill steps added a minute or two more but not much.

One thing we noticed was that after the corn was blended in the blender and returned to the pot it was very thick. We added a 1/4 cup more of chicken stock at that point.

The flavor from the bacon was smoky and quite flavorful. The grill added a bit of depth to the flavors as well it was quite good.

Cooking Light Recipe:

Ingredients

• 6 slices center-cut bacon, chopped
• 1 cup prechopped onion
• 1/2 cup prechopped celery
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 4 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels, thawed
• 2 cups fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
• 3/4 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp
• 1/3 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Preparation

• 1. Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add bacon to pan; saute 4 minutes or until the bacon begins to brown. Remove 2 slices bacon. Drain on paper towels. Add onion and next 3 ingredients (through minced garlic) to pan, and saute for 2 minutes. Add corn, and cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add broth; bring to a boil, and cook for 4 minutes.
• 2. Place 2 cups of corn mixture in a blender. Remove the center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape), and secure lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening in the blender lid (to avoid splatters). Blend until smooth. Return pureed corn mixture to pan. Stir in shrimp; cook 2 minutes or until shrimp are done. Stir in half-and-half, pepper, and salt. Crumble reserved bacon over soup.

David Bonom, Cooking Light
AUGUST 2011