6 Favorite Corn Chowders to Hold on to Summer for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

The end of summer is approaching, if not seen through the weather, at least seen on the calendar pages. Chowder, especially corn chowder is a great way to hold on to summer, while welcoming the fall. 

Here are 6 great corn chowders to enjoy. I have countless chowders and corn chowders on the blog so I whittled down the list by choosing ones by our I Heart Cooking Clubs featured chefs and keeping them vegetarian. 

I added hominy to Mark Bittman's Basic Corn Chowder and it was a great addition to the texture of this simple classic: 

Yotam Ottolenghi's Sweet Corn Chowder with Spiced Butter is elevated with the sexy spiced butter:

Rick Bayless's Emerald Corn Chowder with Roasted Tomatillos and Poblano is full of flavor:

Another great Mark Bittman recipe is this hearty Corn-and-Cheddar Chowder:

Jacques Pépin's Corn and Hominy Chowder is quick, colorful and tasty:

Finally Donna Hay's Cauliflower and Corn Chowder is unique and delicious:

All of these corn chowders were simple and delicious and will help you extend that summer vibe so I am linking this post up at IHCC's Holding On To Summer post.

Now let's check into the Souper Sundays kitchen and see who is here. 

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog shared this pretty and refreshing Fresh Corn and Blueberry Salad. She says, "Got corn on the cob? Talk about an unusual yet tasty salad! Sweet corn and sweet blueberries mix beautifully in this colorful summer salad. ... It is simple to make, gluten-free, oil-free, parve, and vegan."

Tina of Squirrel Head Manor brings a Hummus Sandwich this week saying, "I am a big fan of hummus so I thought, why not make a sandwich with it.  This is a spinach artichoke and sun dried tomato blend. ... Spread this on toast with sliced tomatoes. A fast and healthy lunch alternative."

And Kim of Stirring the Pot shared Curtis Stone's Favorite (& Healthy) Potato Salad saying, "When you pour the broth over the potatoes and stir, the potatoes become flavorful and creamy all on their own. This means it is only necessary to use a very small amount of mayo. I have to say, I was really impressed with this method and couldn't believe how creamy and "classic" this potato salad looked and tasted."

Thanks to Judee, Tina and Kim for joining me this week! 

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here.
 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.
• Although we are pretty wide on what defines a soup, sandwich or salad, entries that are clearly not in the same family (ie: desserts, meats, random main or side dishes that aren't salads, etc.) are meant for another round up and will be deleted. 

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week!

 

Five Favorite Greek Soups for Souper (Soup, Salad, & Sammie) Sundays

I have had the workweek and weekend from hell and so Sunday finds me laying about and not in the kitchen. Because I Heart Cooking Clubs' theme this week is Go Greek!, I am going to bring you five favorite Greek Soups from our IHCC Featured Chefs.

Tahinosoupa (Tahini Soup) from Tessa Kiros is a classic from the Cycladic Islands

Tessa's Soupy Bakes Chickpeas aren't technically a soup, but they are soupy so I am counting them. 

Jamie Oliver takes his Greek Salad and whirls it in the blender for this Greek Salad Gazpacho, excellent on hot days.

I have featured Ruth Reichl's Avegolemono Soup a couple of times all ready, but it's a classic.  

And Mark Bittman's blender-frothed Avgolemono Soup is an easy way to enjoy this favorite. I made mine with pearled couscous instead of orzo. 

You can't go wrong with any of these, or check out Tina from Squirrel Head Manor's Greek Lentil Soup from Tessa Kiros which I don't know how I have escaped making but will remedy soon.

Linking up with IHCC and the Go Greek theme this week. 

Now let's check into the Souper Sundays kitchen and see who is here. 

Melynda of Scratch Made Food shares another 3 dishes this week, starting with her BBQ Chicken Salad for Sandwiches. She says, "This is a delicious sandwich! BBQ Chicken Salad is crunchy, not too sweet, and delicious between a couple of slices of bread, or open-face style. Be sure to add some bread and butter pickle slices and a few black olives, on the side!"

Her second dish is Moroccan Carrot Salad which she says is a "another delicious non-lettuce salad to enjoy. With good quality organic carrots available year-round making this salad is so easy! Feel free to adjust the spices listed to satisfy your own tastes."

Finally she shares her Green Bean Soup, saying that it "might sound unusual, but...it is easy to make, delicious, and light! Also perfect for the warm autumn days ahead as well as the cold winter on the way. This delicious recipe uses green beans from your own garden, or from the local Farmers Market!"

Tina of Squirrel Head Manor shares two dishes this week, first up a tasty Side Salad of "Vine ripe tomatoes, sliced green onions, red onions, lettuce, cucumber and fresh corn. A bit of salt and pepper and your preferred dressing."

And the Lentil Soup from Tessa Kiros, saying, "From Food from Many Greek Kitchens I made a lentil soup chock with carrots, garlic and onions. The longer it simmers the thicker it will get. A bit of flour can help with that too."

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog shared Leek, Chickpea, and Spinach Noodle Soup, saying "Noodle soup is one of my favorites, and I love it in this healthy combination with leeks, carrots, spinach and chickpeas. The soup is simple, flavorful, and nourishing. It feels cozy on a cool night and can satisfy as a meal in a bowl for lunch. 

Thanks to Judee, Tina and Melynda for joining me this week! 

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here.
 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.
• Although we are pretty wide on what defines a soup, sandwich or salad, entries that are clearly not in the same family (ie: desserts, meats, random main or side dishes that aren't salads, etc.) are meant for another round up and will be deleted. 

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week!

 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "Deer Season" by Erin Flanagan, Served with Fudgy Frosted Brownies

Happy Aloha Friday! I am excited to be today's stop on the TLC Book Tour for Deer Season by Erin Flanagan. Accompanying my review is a recipe for Fudgy Frosted Brownies. 

Publisher's Blurb:

It’s the opening weekend of deer season in Gunthrum, Nebraska, in 1985, and Alma Costagan’s intellectually disabled farmhand, Hal Bullard, has gone hunting with some of the locals, leaving her in a huff. That same weekend, a teenage girl goes missing, and Hal returns with a flimsy story about the blood in his truck and a dent near the headlight. When the situation escalates from that of a missing girl to something more sinister, Alma and her husband are forced to confront what Hal might be capable of, as rumors fly and townspeople see Hal’s violent past in a new light.

A drama about the complicated relationships connecting the residents of a small-town farming community, Deer Season explores troubling questions about how far people will go to safeguard the ones they love and what it means to be a family.

Publisher: NEBRASKA (September 1, 2021)

Paperback: 320 pages

My Review:

Deer Season quietly crept up on me and I found myself engaged from beginning to end in this literary mystery set in a small Nebraska community in the 1980s. Character driven with characters, who while not always likable, feel real and will stay with me. Clyle and Alma Costagan are childless, and have become family for Hal, their intellectually challenged farmhand and they look out for him, even as he is approaching 30. They aren't happy when he goes on a deer hunting trip with a couple of locals and when he comes back early saying he shot a deer, and with a dented truck with bloodstains, they think the hardest thing to do will be to smooth over the issues with his hunting permit and help him clean up. Unfortunately a teenage girl, Peggy Ahern, is missing and soon the community is suspicious of Hal, and Alma and Clyle do their best to defend him while having their own thoughts and worries about what Hal is capable of. 

The story is told by partially by Alma, a hard woman to like and considered by most to be an outsider since Clyle brought her back from the city when his mother died. The other chapters are told by Milo Ahern, Peggy's 12-year-old brother, wise beyond his years, and my favorite character in the book. I enjoyed the 1985 Nebraska setting and the cast of small town characters that make up Gunthrum. The mystery is solid and slow and steady tension is built to the end, but it is the relationships and the the meaning of family and loyalty that are the standouts. One of my favorites for the year so far, Erin Flanagan is a talent, and I'm going to look up her short story collections to read more from her. 

-----

Author Notes: Erin Flanagan is a professor at Wright State University. She is the author of two short story collections, The Usual Mistakes (Nebraska, 2005) and It’s Not Going to Kill You, and Other Stories (Bison Books, 2013).

You can Connect with Erin on her website or Twitter. 

-----

Food Inspiration:

I am a little bummed because there is plenty of food in Deer Season and I highlighted it in my Kindle e-book copy but then it reset and I lost all my notes. :-( Very sad! From memory, mentions included coffee, peanut butter toast, ham and eggs, pancakes, spaghetti, poached eggs, sausage, Oreos, potato salad, sugar cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, venison, cinnamon rolls, lasagna, fish sticks, meatloaf, baked pork chops, macaroni and cheese, potatoes, salad with Dorothy Lynch (a brand of salad dressing), Runzas (a pocket sandwich) and crinkle cut fries, venison and beer. I am sure there was more but that's a least a sample. 

For my bookish dish I decided to go with brownies. There's a mention in the book about Peggy, the missing girl, would sneak into the pan of brownies and cut a quarter of an inch off from the cuts already made and keep doing it over and over, thinking no one would notice but her mother did. Mainly, I was craving chocolate and brownies! ;-) I don't make brownies (or even bake) very often but when I do, I like this recipe from the Joy the Baker Cookbook that I first made years ago for a cookbook spotlight event. 

Chocolate Fudge Brownies with Frosting
Adapted from Joy The Baker Cookbook
(Makes one 8-inch (or one 11-x-7) pan)

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 350F. Grease and flour an 8-inch-square baking dish and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Bring about 2 inches of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. In a medium, heatproof bowl, add butter and unsweetened chocolate. Place the bowl over, but not touching, the simmering water and allow to melt. Stir to incorporate. Once melted, remove the bowl from the simmering pot. Whisk in brown and granulated sugars. Whisk in eggs, yolk, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture, all at once, to the chocolate mixture. Fold together with a spatula until well incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Bake until a skewer inserted in the center of the brownie comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool completely before frosting.

Frost when cooled. Brownies last, well wrapped, at room temp for up to 5 days.

Note: Joy the Baker has an amazing buttercream frosting (here) that I would have made but it calls for Ovaltine in it which neither I or my store had. I looked online and ended up with this recipe from TaraTeaspoon.com (here) that I think is both easy and delicious. You could also leave these fudgy brownies unfrosted, but why not just go all the way?! ;-)

Notes/Results: These brownies are so chocolatey and fudgy and I love a fudgy brownie! With the layer of frosting they are especially decadent and I am going to need to give them away because I have already eaten two since this afternoon. I put them in the freezer, both because I like slightly frozen brownies, and also to get them out of my sight. Although Joy the Baker's frosting is suburb, I would happily make these brownies and this brownie frosting again. 

I'm sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event  being hosted by Marg at The Adventures of An Intrepid Reader. It's a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. Here's a link to this week's post. 

Note: A review copy of Deer Season was provided to me by the author and the publisher via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.    

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here. 

 

Minestrone Love: Five Different Minestrone Soups for Souper (Soup, Salad, & Sammie) Sundays

I spent most of my Saturday helping out at a job fair for work and after an exhausting week, you guessed it, I wasn't in to spending time in the kitchen this weekend. So instead, I relaxed and caught up with my reading, and I bring you some minestrone soups I have loved.

Minestrone is a classic and can have so many variations. Wikipedia says, "Minestrone is a thick soup of Italian origin made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice, sometimes both. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, croutons, and tomatoes."

Here are five of I ave featured on the blog:

This Farmer's Market Minestrone with White Beans is satisfying and summery:

My Middle Eastern Minestrone with Chickpeas and Israeli Couscous is an exotic take on the classic made special with One Flew Over the Couscous Nest spice from @thebookclubcookbook: 

A simple, healthy classic is Ellie Krieger's Family Favorite Minestrone: 

Back when I ate meat on the regular, I threw this Smoky Minestrone Soup together from my pantry and fridge:

And when I was eating vegan and lots of raw foods, I tried this no-cook Home-Style Minestrone, another good option for a hot summer day. 

Five different versions--all delicious!

Now let's see who is in the Souper Sundays kitchen this week.

Melynda from Scratch Made Food shared another three dishes this week. The first is a Avocado Caprese Salad. She says, "This is a bit off the path from the usual Caprese salad, but very much a delightful rendition. And because it is a freestyle salad, feel free to improvise as you wish, to please your family. This Avocado Caprese Salad makes a lovely starter to any summer meal, as well as a delicious main course."

Next is her Tuscan Bean Salad with Tomatoes and Oregano. She says, "With fresh tomato season ending soon, you too will want to make this salad. Like all cooks before me and everyone that will come after, I changed the process a bit. Made is easier on the cook...Oh and used what I currently have in the garden.....tender baby beet greens and swiss chard, from the garden."

Finally she shared her White Bean Soup with Cilantro Broth, saying it's "is perfect to enjoy just about anytime, but especially when you desire something fresh, frugal, and full of vegetables! With already cooked beans on hand, this easy delicious full meal soup comes together quickly!"

Tina of Squirrel Head Manor brought a cooling Tomato, Cucumber & Mozzarella Salad, saying, "Tomato, cucumber and mozzarella salad is just perfect for a hot summer dinner.  It's a quick and easy side dish, healthy ingredients and tasty too. I've been enjoying reading through this Jacques Pepin cookbook lately, staying inside and avoiding the high temperatures. This recipe was one I'd bookmarked awhile back,  no time like the present."

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog shared Watermelon, Cucumber, Tomato, and Mint Salad and said, "When temperatures start to rise to over 90 degrees, you will welcome this refreshing watermelon, cucumber, and tomato salad seasoned with chopped scallions and freshly chopped mint-  it is sweet, savory and delicious. This revitalizing salad is perfect during hot and humid summer heat waves when the need to hydrate is so important, and you only feel like eating something light." 

Thanks to Judee, Tina and Melynda for joining me this week! 

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here.
 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.
• Although we are pretty wide on what defines a soup, sandwich or salad, entries that are clearly not in the same family (ie: desserts, meats, random main or side dishes that aren't salads, etc.) are meant for another round up and will be deleted. 

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week!