Remember the beautiful dutch oven that I got for christmas last year? I finally busted it out again. I picked up an old copy of the Moosewood cookbook from a yard sale earlier this summer, and with the weather being all cold and crappy, it got me in the mood to make soup. I decided to make some succotash chowder. First I cooked up some onion, garlic, and celery with some basil and thyme. I don’t like celery, so I left mine purposely huge so I could easily fish them out later. Meanwhile, I had soaked the lima beans for many hours and had been simmering them. I’d also cooked up some potatoes.
You then add some frozen corn. I had gotten some extra sweet organic sweet corn from TJ’s.
You then add the lima beans in there. I also took some of this mix and pureed it with an immersion blender (a new toy I’d just picked up for future soup making) to make the soup thicker.
And to finally chowderize it, the potatoes and milk are added.
I removed the celery at this point. So the mistake I made was that the lima beans weren’t cooked enough. I followed the recipe, but I should have followed the instructions on the bean bag instead. I should have soaked them for hours longer and certainly cooked them even longer. They turned out crunchy, which isn’t very appetizing. So mostly, I just ended up fishing around the lima beans. The rest of the chowder itself was quite fine.
08 Nov 2007 |
work |
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We had our quarterly company meeting last week. Typically, it’s at the West Conshohocken Marriott, but it was moved last minute to the ACE Center. Not a bad thing. They told us some stuff during the meeting, but nothing was surprising. We all knew what was coming.
The lunch was alright. I’ve had better meals there. Similar to my last meal at ACE, it was a little lackluster. The chicken was a bit dry, but the red pepper sauce was great. The creamy italian salad dressing was actually quite noteworthy.
Desserts, as usual, is where the ACE really stands out. There were multiple pies, cakes, chocolates, and even fruit. I went with the apple pie again. I can’t help myself, I know what I like.
We had another all day offsite at the ACE center a few weeks ago. This means non-stop eating. They ply us with drinks and snacks all day. Breakfast, hot and cold, ice cream, fruit, it just doesn’t stop. Lunch this time was not nearly as good as some of the other days. The hot entree selections were lacking. But the dessert selection was good, as usual. Whenever there is a buffet involved, my plate always looks like a big slop of mess. I just love variety, is all. The pie, delicious! And I made mine a la mode.
On another exciting note, I did something incredibly cool in October, I took a glassblowing class. And before class, M would make us dinner, because she’s just that cool. We had crab ravioli one night, chili another night, stew one night, and one night we had this pasta bake that she made, with sausage, ham, and peas. What’s not to love? I loved it. How come I can’t ever make something like this? Or morever, how come I never make anything like this? She said it’s the simplest thing in the world. But I just never make stuff like this, even though I love it and could eat it every day.
And to finally chowderize it, the potatoes and milk are added.
" list. So of course, I decided to try them all. Join me for this 15-post series, as I test out each of these cocktails to see just how worthy they are.
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