of the recipe, that is.  Did you think you’d tripped into a political blog by accident?

I did make corn chowder last night.  The chowder I made is based on a recipe from the September issue of Martha Stewart Living.  Of course, I don’t make any recipe the way it’s written.  Sometimes, my alterations/substitutions dont’ hurt the recipe.  Sometimes they even make it better for me.  Other times, they are very bad indeed.  I’ll give you some examples of changes I have made (for good and for bad) to help you think about how you might want to adapt your favorite recipes — or some new ones.

The first time I make a recipe, I try to follow it as exactly as possible.  I like to give the chef the benefit of the doubt the first time.  Then, all bets are off as I modify it to my taste.

The first thing that went in the corn chowder recipe was the celery that was part of the base.  I don’t eat a lot of celery, so I don’t tend to keep it in the house.  I’m not going to buy a bunch to get one stalk while the rest becomes green slime in the crisper.  On the other hand, things like onions and potatoes are always on hand because they last longer without going bad.  I can’t honestly say that I feel the lack of celery in my soup. 

The original recipe calls for using fresh corn, cut off the cob.  Yeah, that’s not happening in February.  Frozen white corn works beautifully, thank you very much.

The recipe uses a lovely mixture of spices — coriander, cumin, and cayenne.  I cook the onion over lower heat so it carmelizes a bit.  Then I add the spices and let them smoke a bit before deglazing the pot with white wine.

I have tried adding extra potatoes to my soup.  This is a bad thing!  Potatoes absorb too much liquid, so you add more broth or milk and then the soup tastes watery and thin.  Never add extra starches to soups — that means potatoes, rice, noodles, etc.  If you want extra noodles, cook them separately and add them to the fully prepared soup right before serving.  They won’t have enough time to soak up liquid.

Finally, I tried freshly ground mixed peppercorns in my soup.  I had bought the mixture for another recipe, and I hate to see it go to waste.  They blended with the soup’s spice base so perfectly.

I ended up with a corn chowder that was smooth and creamy from potatoes and milk, slightly sweet from the carmelized onion and the corn, smoky from the spices, with a bit of a bite from the pepper.  And it was ready to eat in 30 minutes.  Yum.