January 19 - Seafood Chowder for Cold Nights

Winter nights are good excuse for hot soups and stews. It's our turn to make seafood chowder.

Chowder has the main ingredients of browned bacon, onions and potatoes. As for a seafood chowder, you add Old Bay seasoning, a familiar seasoning for any seafood dish. You can go wild with the amount of Old Bay seasoning that you put in, depending on how hot and spicy you want your chowder to be.

My kids (and husband!) are not too daring with seafood yet. You could add clams, scallops, and fish in your chowder. I could only put shrimps in mine :(

Seafood Chowder

Ingredients

4 pieces of bacon, cut in small pieces

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 white onion, minced

2 celery hearts, sliced thinly, about 4 cups

4 carrots, diced

16 fluid oz clam juice

26 oz chopped tomatoes

2 tbsp salt

4 bay leaves

4 tbsp Old Bay seasoning

3 cups water

corn kernels from 3 corn ears

8 buttercream potatoes, diced

20 pieces shrimp, shelled and deveined

Cooking Time (1 hour)

In a big pot, brown the bacon.

Add the garlic and onion and saute until caramelized.

Add the celery and cook for about 10 minutes to make it tender.

Add the carrots and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the clam juice, chopped tomatoes, salt, bay leaves, Old Bay seasoning,and water.

After 10 minutes, add the potatoes and corn.

In the last 5 minutes, add the shrimps.