Corn Chowder and Asparagus Salad with Feta on Baby Greens and Matt makes waffles

In the summer we have so much corn and even though it's warm out, I make corn chowder often. We have a great corn stand on the way up to our river house that we stop at. The corn is sweet and delicious. To freeze it, cut it off the cob and cook it in butter and then place in gallon size bags, flatten them out on top of each other. This supplies us with corn , hopefully for the whole winter. This year we are out already. I used the organic frozen corn from the farmers market to make my soup but it wasn't as sweet as the corn we get in Piermont.

Ingredients:

6 cups of cut corn

Diced Carrots

Diced green pepper

Diced 1/2 sweet onion

Diced Celery Stocks 3

Diced Potatoes 2

4 cups of chicken stock

1 cup of 1/2 and 1/2 

6 tbsp of flour

5 pieces of  Pancetta 

Grape seed oil

Heat 2 tbsp of grape seed oil in a deep dutch oven. Brown the pancetta and remove from the pan. Put all of the diced vegetables except the corn in the hot oil and cook until translucent. Add corn, and chicken broth, simmer for 20 minutes. Mix 1/2 and 1/2 with the flour with whisk and whisk slowly into the soup mixture. When it thickens, serve with the crispy pancetta on top.

If you want to add chicken or cheddar cheese. 

Cook diced chicken in the hot oil before adding the vegetables.

For cheddar cheese, stir the graded cheese in just before serving.

Garnish with green chilies.

For the Salad, steam asparagus, place on a bed of greens then sprinkle with feta and drizzle with Balsamic Vinaigrette. 

Matt made waffles today. He is 15 and is a reluctant cook. I taught him how to do it using bis-quick and a waffle maker.  The middle sauce, is melted butter and maple syrup.