Secret Recipe Club - Amazing Chicken, Corn, and Potato Chowder

For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired up with Aimee from Shugary Sweets, a mother of four active kids who loves to cook but especially bake. In her About Me section she suggests grabbing a cup of coffee and staying for a while, and that’s exactly what I did. I found it a very enjoyable way to spend a blustering fall afternoon. Aimee does have a lot of tempting sweet treats that I bookmarked, and her large assortment of donut recipes (“The Donut Shop”) is truly impressive. Glad I don’t have the right equipment to make these as it would be dangerous for our waistlines.

I debated between the Italian beef and giardiniera recipe, which Chicago boy Craig would adore, crockpot barbacoa and cilantro lime rice – cilantro and chipotle – what’s not to love?, but I finally settled for something a little lighter, chicken, corn, and potato chowder. Originally a slow cooker recipe, I made it on the cook top, and the recipe below reflects my changes, including a few slices of bacon, diced bell peppers, regular (frozen) corn instead of creamed corn (I added some milk and spooned out and pureed some of the cooked potatoes and corn to add creaminess). I also had some green beans from our CSA that needed to be used so I threw those in too, and I forgot to add the cream cheese, but we never missed it. The salsa verde adds a distinct brightness so don’t omit it. Sadly, I defrosted the last of the tomatillo salsa I froze last summer. With the high temps this summer I only got two tomatillos from the garden so we have none to get us through the winter. This comes together quickly and is very flavorful on a chilly evening.

Chicken, Corn and Potato Chowder Recipe

2-3 slices bacon, diced

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

1 red onion, roughly chopped

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped

1 colored bell pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeno, seeded and diced

3 baking potatoes, washed and cubed

2 C chicken broth

1 C milk

2 C frozen corn

1/2 C salsa verde

2 t cumin

2 t Southwest seasoning (I used Penzey’s Arizona mix)

1/3 c sour cream

1/2 C cheddar cheese, shredded

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a Dutch oven, sauté the bacon until crispy. Remove to a paper towel and set aside. Drain all but one tablespoon of the bacon fat from the pan and add the chicken, cooking until no longer pink. Remove and set aside.

Add the onions, carrots, bell pepper, garlic, and jalapeno and sauté until vegetables are soft, adding olive oil by the teaspoon if needed. Add the chicken broth, milk, potatoes, corn, salsa, cumin, and Southwest seasoning. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and cook until the potatoes are soft. Spoon out some of the potatoes and corn and puree in a blender or with a stick blender. Return to the pan along with the chicken and cook until heated through, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in cheese, salt and pepper, stirring to melt cheese.

When serving, top with bacon.

Slow Cooker Version:

In the slow cooker, add vegetables, chicken breasts, broth, corn, salsa and seasonings. Heat on low for 6-8 hours. Remove chicken, dice or shred, and return to slow cooker. In last half hour before serving, add sour cream and cheddar cheese.

Stir thoroughly before serving.

Korean Style London Broil and the Secret Recipe Club

For this month’s Secret Recipe Club where food bloggers are assigned another member’s blog “in secret” and select and prepare a recipe that is then shared on a designated reveal day. I was fortunate to have been assigned Hezzi Ds Books and Cooks. Heather (aka Hezzi D, her hubby’s rock & roll nickname for her, which made me chuckle) just celebrated her first year of blogging, and she has been quite busy based on the number of posts about both food and books. Her blog is filled with many delicious recipes, and I particularly enjoyed her 2011 canning inventory. It’s obvious she enjoys baking too with numerous sweet treats (33 chocolate recipes!), but I was intrigued with the “best of” list she posted on her blog’s anniversary that features her favorite recipes from the last year. I debated between the jalapeno popper dip and Korean Short Ribs and finally settled on the short ribs.

The only problem was when I went to pull the ribs from the freezer, I figured out Connor had grilled all we had when I was travelling on business a few weeks ago. With a quick Google search, I realized London broil can be substituted for boneless short ribs, and we were in business. I’m learning how to cook lean, grass-fed beef, and my research indicates it does best with a long, low temp, slow cook (such as in the slow cooker as with this recipe), or braised, or done with a high temp for a quick sear. I’ve also discovered grass fed beef benefits greatly from a marinade, so I soaked the beef in the sauce portion of the recipe overnight in the frig to both tenderize it and impart additional moisture in the meat. The house smelled divine by the end of the day, and the flavor of the sauce was outstanding, a mix of Asian and barbeque. I also added onions, bell peppers, and tomatoes to make it a more well-rounded pot dish. We served it over Udon noodles and with Korean coleslaw as a side. Leftovers make fantastic bulgogi-like sandwiches for lunch the next day. The recipe below reflects the changes I made. And I will get around to making the jalapeno popper dip soon. Thanks Hezzi D for such inspirational recipes.

Korean Style London Broil

Serves 4

1/2 C. soy sauce

1/2 C. packed light brown sugar

2 T. sesame oil
3 T. rice wine vinegar
2 T. fresh ginger, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C. water
1 t. red pepper flakes
1 t. ground ginger
1 t. freshly ground black pepper
1 pound London broil or boneless beef short ribs

2 medium onions, sliced

2 bell peppers, coarsely chopped

2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped or 1 14ounce can tomatoes

Sesame seeds
2 green onions, sliced (I forgot these)

Score the London broil.

Mix the soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, vinegar, fresh ginger, garlic, and water in the a small bowl, stirring until the brown sugar is well incorporated.  Sprinkle in the red pepper, ginger, and black pepper.  Mix well. Place the meat and sauce in a heavy duty Ziploc and refrigerate over night.

Scatter half the onion slices on the bottom of the slow cooker. Cover with the London broil and spoon the sauce over top the meat. Cover with remaining onions, bell pepper, and tomatoes. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

Remove the meat (which I shredded with two forks) from the slow cooker and serve over Asian noodles or rice. Top with green onions

Aromatic Slow-Cooked Sweet & Sour Brisket

Today we drove to Philadelphia, MO to pick up the two Poland China breed hogs that we split with three other couples. Wow, they were some huge pigs, so large that Craig purchased a new Christmas present for us - another freezer. We laughed that we freezer #1 is the bison freezer and freezer #2 is the pig freezer.

Despite the dreariness of the day, the beauty of the rural Missouri countryside was to be appreciated, and it reminded me of an Andrew Wyeth landscape. And I think that nearly every city, state, and country has a town named after it in Missouri (Nevada, Louisiana, Mexico, Cuba, Montreal, Houston (in Texas County), the list goes on and on.

I threw a bison brisket in the slow cooker before we left and came home to a fragrant house. It shredded with a fork and melted in your mouth. I made hot and sour soup (homemade) for me and the guys had egg rolls (frozen) till I got everything else together - a simply veggie stir fry and a new find that everyone loved. In lieu of boring steamed brown rice, I picked up a package of Chinese Noodles from China Bowl. They were a non-fried ramen type noodle, took less than five minutes to cook, soft, and I envision they'd be great in soup.

Sweet and Sour Slow Cooker (Bison) Brisket

(from cookinglight.com - no modifications)

(Photo from Cooking Light)