Seafood Chowder

Apparently this is food week. I’ve been on a mission to eat through the random proteins in our freezer.  So far I’ve successfully used almost a dozen turkey and beef burgers (tacos and shepherd’s pie) only having actual burgers once, turkey kielbasa (lentil soup), lots of rolls and of course left over home made ice-cream from this summer.  Why have I been on this mission?  The same reason I’m cleaning and purging around the rest of the house.  Getting ready for Baby; I want to be sure I have good go-to meals and meal starters in the freezer and pantry for when I’m to sleep deprived to figure out what’s for dinner (or lunch).  There has been a single piece of tilapia floating around in there for months (not sure how I ended up with just one) and I finally figured out what to do with it during last week’s snow storm.  Fish chowder!  You certainly don’t need to use tilapia, any white fish will do.  Also you could just use clams for clam chowder, just fish for fish chowder, leave out the corn if that’s not your thing, customize it for what you like. Recipe below



Ingredients 
2 Slices of bacon
1 small onion
1 stalk celery
1TBSP Butter
1TBSP Flour
1C Milk
2C Fish Stock
1 piece white fish
6 large shrimp, peeled and deviened
1 small potato
1C corn

Instructions

• Cut your bacon into bite sized pieces, let it get crispy in your chowder pot while you mince the onion and celery.
• Once crispy remove the bacon to a paper towel, try not to snack on it.
• Cook the onion and celery in the bacon fat until soft, then add the butter.
• Once the butter is melted whisk in the flour. Allow to cook for 5 - 10 minutes.
• Whisk in the milk and bring to a bubble then whisk in the stock.
• Add your fish, you can put the whole piece in, it will cook in the chowder than you can break it up with your spoon. The chowder should be at a simmer (medium/low heat)
• Poke your potato all over with a fork and microwave it for 3 - 5 minutes to par cook.
• Peel and chop the shrimp into bite sized pieces.
• Once you can handle the potato peel it then cut into bite sized pieces.
• While you’ve been doing all this prep your fish has been cooking and you should now be able to break it up with whatever you’ve been stirring your chowder with.
• Add the shrimp, potatoes and corn (I use frozen, toss it right in the pot frozen). And bring back to a bubble (medium heat).
• The potatoes will take the longest to cook, check it in 15 minutes once at a simmer, the chowder will also thicken up during this time.
• Check for seasoning, I used Lawry’s seasoning salt.  You could also use just salt and pepper or Old Bay.
• Once the potatoes are cooked and you are happy with the seasoning toss the bacon back in and you’re ready to eat!