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10/03/2019 12:01 AMHave I told you before that I am in a football pool?
I really love football and have since I was married to my first husband. My second, and last, and late husband did not like football, or any other sports on television and, for that matter, didn’t like television at all. But I like to watch any kind of competition, from football and Jeopardy! and everything in between, and I have been in this football pool for years.
A couple of Fridays ago, the man who runs the pool e-mailed me and said he was concerned because he did not get my pick for the Thursday night game. Was I okay, he asked.
I told him what I am telling you now: In four days, I made a triple batch of Bolognese sauce, three banana chocolate chip breads, a Ruby chocolate cheesecake, and a double batch of a new recipe for corn chowder.
You have my recipes for the first two.
We will talk about this Ruby cocoa bean created by Callebaut once I have some time to play with it, maybe in November. I just made that cheesecake, which required more expertise than I had. It does not need baking but sets up in the freezer. It looks beautiful and will not know how it tastes until tomorrow.
But this last-of-the-summer-corn corn chowder is absolutely delicious. I sort of decided it would be good, so I doubled the recipe here, which is for just 6 people. Feel free to adjust according to the amount you would like.
I did not finely chop veggies, I just diced them. I used some fingerling potatoes I bought at a farm market and cut them in little circles and didn’t peel them, either. I did use heavy cream. I did not take out the thyme (why would I take it out if I had taken the leaves off the stem?). If it’s too late to get fresh sweet corn, good-quality frozen sweet corn will do.
Find Lee’s recipes for Bolognese sauce and banana bread at Zip06.com (search “lee white and “bolognese sauce” or “going bananas”).
Lee White of Old Lyme has been a food editor and restaurant reviewer for more than 25 years. You can email her at leeawhite@aol.com.
Nancy Fuller’s Cold-Day Corn Chowder
Adapted from Food Network magazine, October, 2019
Yield: serves 6
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 small yellow bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped thyme
2 dried bay leaves
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 large russet potato (about 12 ounces) peeled and cut into
½ inch chunks
1 cup half-and-half or heavy cream
4 cups fresh corn kernels (about 6 ears) or frozen corn, thawed
and drained)
Melt butter in a medium Dutch oven over medium heat. Add bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp, about 6 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain.
Drain or spoon off all but 3 tablespoons of fat in the pot. Add onions, bell pepper and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables just begin to become tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and add flour, thyme, and bay leaves. Stir flour into the vegetables to make a paste and coat them evenly to get rid of flour flavor. Add chicken broth and bring to a simmer, scraping the bottom a few times, about 15 minutes.
Uncover pot and add potatoes, half-and-half, and corn. Simmer, uncovered, until potato is tender but not yet falling apart, 15 to 20 minutes.
Discard bay leaves from the soup. Purée about 1 cup in a food processor or blender and stir back into the soup. Add the crisp bacon and stir into the soup. Ladle into bowls and serve warm.