Seafood Chowder On a Budget

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post, but I just had to brag about this amazing seafood chowder I made the other night...completely thought up in my head, then executed beautifully.
I bought a 1 pint bottle of heavy cream a while back with the intention of trying out my new fondue pot, but never got around to it. Since it was about to expire, I had to think of something to use it with and quick. Heavy cream is too beautiful and fattening to let go to waste. At first I thought of doing an alfredo, but then saw a recipe for corn chowder one day on the internets. Somehow that got me thinking of seafood chowder and I thought up this whole great recipe in my head. Once completed, I had a perfectly seasoned, deliciously bad for you chowder that I could have eaten for days, but it didn't last that long.
So here it is folks, I give you my seafood chowder recipe. Treasure it and hey, make it your own! You can throw ANYTHING into the pot!

Jenny's Seafood Chowder

1 stick of butter
1 pint of heavy cream
5-6 cups of chicken broth
1 medium onion chopped
4 ribs of celery diced
1 cup of grated or chopped carrot (I use the prepackaged kind)
1-2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste
2-3 shakes of Old Bay Seasoning
1 can of clams
1 1/2 cups of shrimp, roughly chopped
1 pkg of imitation crab meat (I get the Ukrops pre-spiced kind, but you could use the real thing)
1 large potato, diced
1 cup of frozen or fresh corn kernals
1 tablespoon of corn starch
1 tablespoon of cold water

(*The key to perfect seasoning here is to season in layers as you go)

Melt butter in a dutch oven or stock pot on the stove. Add garlic, onion, celery, and carrots. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until softened, about 10-15 minutes. Add potato. Cook for another 10 minutes. Stir often.

Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add corn. Continue cooking at a light boil until potatoes are soft. Season with salt and pepper.

Add in heavy cream, clams, shrimp, and crab meat. Add in Old Bay. Bring back to a light boil.

In a small bowl, mix together corn starch and cold water. Add to the chowder. This should thicken it slightly. Boil for another 10 minutes or until chowder thickens slightly more and shrimp are cooked through. Taste for seasoning and add more if needed.

Serve with cornbread or oyster crackers. (I prefer the cornbread!)

This is even better the next day when reheated!

Now remember, play with your recipes! You can add or subtract anything to/from this. If you don't like clams, add oysters, or just leave them out all together. If you use oysters, you will need to cook it longer to ensure oyster doneness. You could even make this a creamy vegetable chowder instead of seafood. You could lighten it up with half and half instead of heavy cream, or use light butter (like I did). The possibilities are endless!

The search for bread pudding bliss.

I love me some good old fashioned bread pudding, but I have not yet found that perfect recipe. This past Christmas, we visited my fiance's aunt who is an outstanding throw-together cook. She made what I thought was this delicious cake that was dense, sweet and rich with Brandy. I later found out that it was actually bread pudding, surprisingly because its was molded well into perfect square cuts, just like cake. I had to have the recipe. She gave me Paula Deen's recipe for The Best Bread Pudding.
So I made it two nights ago. I left out the Brandy and substituted Rum because its all we had on hand. I also used walnuts instead of pecans. The result was some very good and very SWEET bread pudding. However, I am skeptical that it was the actual recipe that his aunt used. It was not at all like hers. My tummy was satisfied, nonetheless. I know this woman (whom I love dearly) pulled my leg in making me believe she actually followed a recipe for once! She makes some of the best things, but when you ask her how to make it, she usually replies with "Oh I just threw that mess together, you know, a little of this and a little of that." I hope she knows that she truly has a gift. In the mean time, I'll just hope she makes more of her secret bread pudding for next year.
I might still play with the Paula Deen recipe. If anyone knows old fashioned cooking, its Paula. I would love to incorporate some of the vanilla sauce from Ukrop's into it. I'm sure I can figure out how to make that from scratch. Mmmm.

A garden for those of us with a black thumb...

My boss got this new nifty gadget for Christmas that enables you to grow edible plants indoors with a few simple do-and-go tasks. It's called the AeroGarden. Now I'm not one to fall for infomercial gimics, but the more she talked about this amazing thing, the more I wanted one. I read blog discussions on it, got her input on how she liked it, and even saw the infomercial for it on TV. After months of trying to reason with myself that this would be useful, I finally broke down and bought one from Amazon. It uses two halogen light bulbs, water, air and nutrient tablets to grow a variety of plants such as lettuce, cherry tomatoes, peppers, petunias, and my favorite, fresh herbs.

I often come across a recipe that calls for the use of fresh herbs and we all know that fresh taste better than dried herbs, but buying them from the grocery store can be prices and I NEVER use but a few pieces and the rest always goes bad. When we first bought our house, I tried growing herbs outside in a large pot, but they ended up dying. I also tried growing them inside on my kitchen window sill, but they also died. The AeroGarden is now my savior! I've got a variety of herbs growing and I've only messed with the thing maybe 3-4 times since I've had it. It tells me when I need to add water or nutrients and it does the rest of the work for me.
Was it worth the $170? I'm still not sure on that yet, but so far so good! The herbs grow SO fast and smell wonderful. I would say that this would be perfect for someone with a small living space or apartment, where you don't have land for gardening.
I'll probably stick with just growing herbs for now, but next year I might try out the Garden Master's kit and start my own seedlings for the garden.