Corn & Sweet Potato Chowder

(Note: OH MY GOODNESS,  Beat The Chef was on last night and it was "Texas night". There were two people on there I knew, well kind of. One contestant I went to high school with and one I worked with. So funny. Darius Hawthorne won! If you are from Allen and are reading this, you might want to check it out just for that reason.)   

Do you ever watch Chopped? I love that show!! Okay, I love just about any cooking competition show. Currently I watch Master Chef, Chopped, Top Chef Masters, The Great Food Truck Race and Extreme Chef. Yes, I even watch Beat The Chef on the game network.

If you haven't seen it, here's how the Food Network describes it:  Chopped is a cooking competition show that's all about skill, speed and ingenuity where four up-and-coming chefs compete before a panel of three expert judges and take everyday items and turn them into an extraordinary three-course meal.

Here's how I describe it: Four really great chefs open up a basket with four mystery ingredients.  Then they have 30 minutes to put together an appetizer. If they make it past that round, it's a new set of ingredients and an entree. And finally the same for the dessert round. Last chef standing wins.  

Their random ingredients are usually high quality meats, seafood, and a vegetable with one or maybe two really odd ingredients.  For example, some past combinations have been: 

 

Oysters, Clementines, Chinese Okra & French Dressing

 

Flour Tortillas, English Cucumbers, Fava Beans & Pickled Beef Tongue

 

Conch, Easter Peeps, Peas In The Pod, Prepared Horseradish

 

Hardly everyday items. 

Can you imagine making a gorgeous and tasty meal from that?  They always seem to come up with these unbelievable dishes. I don't know how they do it! Granted they do have a completely stocked kitchen and every gadget and tool imaginable. But still.

If you watch it enough, it's kind of a class on taste and textures and balance.  Easter Peeps are sweet so you balance with heat, or you fry the tortillas for a crispy texture.  These types of things seem to sink in over time and come out when I'm in the kitchen. We don't have something I need - no worries.  I don't need that ingredient, I need what that ingredient brings. So if it's crunch, I look for something else crunchy. If it's sweet or salty, I look for that. 

I've gotten to the point where a lot of times I can go to an almost empty pantry before payday rolls around and still come out with something decent for dinner. Scraps of this and that can make for some tasty meals.  I pride myself on being a Macgyver in the kitchen. Frozen rice, peas and leftover chicken - we have a really delicious meal! 

Today was one of those days.  We were down to bare bones and there was left over this and left over that in the produce bin. Here's what I had to work with:

FRIDGE: A white onion, 3/4 a box of chicken stock, 1 white & 1 sweet potato, some green pepper

(all left over from other meals this past week)

FREEZER:  Frozen corn, a handful of frozen shrimp, two frozen hamburger buns

Not exactly Chopped ingredients, but I'm not exactly a chef either. Here's what I came  up with:

Corn & Sweet Potato Chowder with Shrimp Garnish and Garlic Toasts

No thyme, no bacon, no cream, no milk, no bay leaf, no white wine vinegar, no carrot, no celery ... so here's what I did. 

1. I sauteed the onion, pepper, corn and potatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper and granulated garlic. 
2. I put half the softened veggies and the stock in the blender to "cream" it.
3. I put that mixture in the pot and added the whole veggies and simmered. 
4. I added basil and chives (growing out back).
5. I made some basil oil and red pepper oil.
6. Seasoned up some shrimp and toasts and called it dinner.  

It wasn't the best meal we ever had. Fresh sweet corn, some thyme and bacon would have been delicious, but it worked in a pinch.

 

(FYI...I am waiting for the next Worst Cooks in America, Next Iron Chef, Next Food Network Star, and America’s Next Great Restaurant.)