Corn Chowder, pure comfort food...

Over the weekend we had the best dinner of Bar-B-Que Shrimp, a great tossed green salad and some wonderful sweet corn I found at the farmers market. Everything was so good and there wasn't a single shrimp left over but there were 6 ears of corn not touched. Now I don't blame anyone, who wants veggies when you have all you can eat shrimp. Actually I am kind of glad it's still here because, today being a cool day with thoughts of fall coming in the air, I am going to cook a pot of my favorite soup, Corn Chowder! This is a wonderful soup for days like today or even in the dead of winter when I use bagged frozen corn. Serve it with your favorite crackers or crusty bread and it becomes the perfect comfort food, it sure is for my family.

Jeanne's Corn Chowder (careful even reading the recipe goes to your hips)

Clean and shuck 6 or 8 ears of fresh corn and cut off all the kernels with a sharp knife. Scrap down the cobs, after removing the corn, into the bowl so you don't miss any of the creamy goodness left on the cob.
Cook up 6 slices of bacon until crispy and remove from the pan saving the bacon drippings.
Into the bacon drippings add 2 tablespoons of butter for flavor,
Add a medium onion chopped small to the pan and cook ten minutes to soften the onion.
Peel and chop to bite size pieces three potatoes. Add to the cooking onions.
Add one can of chicken broth/stock or vegetable if you prefer to the pan.
Add one cup of milk to the pan. Stir well and add salt and pepper to your taste. I like a lot of pepper in mine.
Stir in all of the corn and corn scrapings to the mixture in the pan and taste again to see if it needs more salt and pepper.
Lower the temp to low and let it cook thoroughly into potatoes and all the corn is tender. Don't cover because you don't want boil overs and you want the liquid to reduce just a little.
At the end stir in one cup of heavy cream, a tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley and the crumbled crispy bacon.
Serve hot with your favorite sides and enjoy.
P.S. A long walk around the block after dinner always helps with the zillion yet wonderful calories.

Shrimp, Glorious Bar-B-Que Shrimp...

With company coming this weekend I have decided to pull out one of my favorite recipes. I found this about 5 years ago in Southern Living and it became an instant favorite to all that tried it that night. It is one of those recipes that everyone asks for, so before I start claiming it again as my own, here it is. It's warm, wonderful, spicy, mmm mmm good Bar-B-Que Shrimp. It is super easy once you gather all the ingredients. The shrimp can get a bit pricey so I keep it in my freezer when I can get it for deals. When we go to the Outer Banks of North Carolina each September we always make a trip to the shrimp boats and look for good prices. It is so very fresh that way, we buy around twenty five pounds, pack it on ice, and when we get home we pack them in freezer zip lock bags and then fill the bags up with cold water before sealing them. If you fill a bag up with water before you freeze any shrimp or other fish, they stay as fresh as can be since freezer burn can't get through the water in the bag. Try it, it works and you'll have fresh seafood in your freezer all year round.

Southern Bar-B-Que Shrimp
Fabulous served with Crusty French Bread or on top of Creamy Grits
Makes 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients
5 or 6 pounds unpeeled, large fresh shrimp
1 cup butter
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup chili sauce
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
3 lemons, cut in wedges
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons Creole seasoning
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce or more to your liking

Spread shrimp in a shallow, aluminum foil-lined broiler pan.
Combine butter and next 12 ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until butter melts, and pour over shrimp. Cover and chill 2 hours, turning shrimp every 30 minutes.

Bake, uncovered, at 400° for 20 minutes; turn once. Serve with bread or grits.

Pour it into a big bowl on the table and let your company help themselves. Have lots of spoons for dipping that rich, buttery sauce so they can dip their bread into it as they eat the shrimp. Suck off the seasonings before you peel the shrimp and you will be happy you did. Great with either a terrific glass of wine or a cold beer.

I hope you love this as much as we do and if you smell them cooking on Saturday night, ya'll come!

I Brake for Boiling Peanuts...

While doing a little chair dance here at my computer, I get to finally say I'll be going on vacation in just 3 weeks. I love going on vacation and look forward to the next one as soon as one is over. Crazy I know, but even nuttier is one of the reasons I look forward to vacation... Boiled Peanuts! You see we always go south for vacation, to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and along the drive from Maryland we go past so many peanut stands that our stops change the 5 hour drive to 6 or more. We need a bumper sticker that says I Brake for Boiled Peanuts.

I can remember, as a little girl, my Grandma had a peanut patch and each year we would dig up the peanuts, clean them off and drop them into the big pot of boiling water that had been loaded with salt, actually there was so much salt it was more like a boiling brine. You can only boil the raw (green) peanuts and a good rule of thumb is 1/3 to 1/2 cup of salt for every ten pounds of peanuts you're boiling. Keep them at a good but low rolling boil for between 1 to 10 hours. You need to stir them every twenty minutes or so and taste them every hour untill you have reached the tenderness you like. We usually plan on 3 hours on a low boil, uncovered always, to get the tenderness we like best. We enjoy ours boiled only in salt but many other seasonings can be added during the boiling time such as Cajun seasoning, crab boil, jalapeno peppers, garlic or what ever is your desire.

After they have reached the perfect tenderness, then drain them well and dig in by biting down on the shell and sucking that warm, wonderful and briny peanut out of its soft shell. The peanuts are soft and tender, very much like a bean texture, and besides how great they taste they are fantastic for you. Boiling them are much better for you since you have more poly phenol antioxidants than roasted ones.

After you have eaten your fill you can pack all the left overs in zip lock bags and either refrigerate them or place them in the freezer for longer storage time. It is possible to buy boiled peanuts in a can at your grocery store but it doesn't have the same taste or effect as eating them warm from the pot.

I hope you have the opportunity to try them sometime. Stop at one of the road sides stands and dig into those wonderful, warm shells and imagine your headed to the beach. It's a great fantasy and I look forward to living it every September.

Health Note added 8/28/09
1. Breaking News from Alabama A&M University's Department of Food and Animal Sciences...A new study by a group of Huntsville researchers found that boiled peanuts bring out up to four times more chemicals that help protect against disease than raw, dry or oil-roasted nuts. These phytochemicals have antioxidant qualities that protect cells against the risk of degenerative diseases, including cancers, diabetes and heart disease.

2. Boiled Peanuts contain resveratol, a plant chemical also found in red wine, which studies have shown to have a protective effect against cancer and heart disease.

3. Major studies have found eating peanuts can lower the risk of heart disease, cut the risk of diabetes and assist dieters.

4. Boiled peanuts are loaded with many vitamins and minerals and they are high in plant protein. Also, the fat content is primarily monounsaturated and polyunsaturated.

I Love Pralines...

Sitting here missing New Orleans and badly wishing for a few pralines to savor, I came across a web site that made me wish I was there right now. I make pralines as gifts during the holidays but the best of them are found either in Savannah or in New Orleans. Here is a link to a fabulous shop in Savannah that has the greatest southern candies. River Street Sweets (note their photo)

While I looked through the site on the French Quarter I came across this interesting history of the Praline. For my fellow lovers of pralines, and all things pecan, I thought I would share their story. I am quoting them exactly, actually cutting and pasting is the correct term, and I am hoping they won't mind with a link here to their very informational site. French Quarter. The history was written by Mr. Ian McNulty.

"France to the banks of the Mississippi River"

"There are many variations on the story of how the praline came to be, but most of them revolve around the manor house of the 17th-century French diplomat Cesar du Plessis Praslin - a name that later morphed into the term for the candy. A chef in the kitchen here developed a technique for coating almonds in cooked sugar which, competing stories hold, were used by his courtly employer either as a digestive aid or as gifts to the ladies he visited. In France and elsewhere, the word praline is still used as a generic term for any sort of candy made with nuts.

These early confections traveled with Frenchmen to their new colony on the banks of the Mississippi, a land where both sugar cane and nuts were cultivated in abundance. In local kitchens, Louisiana pecans were substituted for the more exotic almonds, cream was added, giving the candy more body, and a Southern tradition was born.

The candy's winning flavor has led to worldwide popularity, and, as such things go, varying pronunciations and hybrid recipes. For the record, the local and proper pronunciation is "prah-lean," while the nut most commonly used in it is pronounced "peck-on." Just remember that, in New Orleans, a word pronounced "pray-lean" means nothing except, perhaps, a posture the supplicant faithful assume while petitioning God.

Even before the Civil War and Emancipation, pralines were an early entrepreneurial vehicle for free women of color in New Orleans. In 1901, the Daily Picayune (a predecessor to today's Times-Picayune newspaper) described in nostalgic terms the "pralinieres," or older black women, who sold pralines "about the streets of the Old French Quarter." They were often found patrolling Canal Street near Bourbon and Royal streets and around Jackson Square in the shade of the alleys flanking St. Louis Cathedral. And in the 1930s, the Louisiana folklorist Lyle Saxon, writing in the book "Gumbo Ya-Ya," documented praline sellers "garbed in gingham and starched white aprons and tignons," or head wraps, fanning their candies with palmetto leaves against the heat and bellowing the sales pitch "belles pralines!" to passersby."

Today you can still find praline makers selling their wonderful candies on the streets for around a dollar each. If you have never tried one they are rich, sweet, creamy and very sinful.