RECIPE: Heather's Sweet Corn Chowder and Grilled Tilapia

Tonight I decided to make some corn chowder and grilled fish. Here's how it went:

Sweet Corn Chowder

• 4 ears of sweet corn, cleaned of husks
• 3-4 cups water
• 1/2 onion, finely diced
• 1 medium potato, diced
• Thyme
• Salt and Pepper
• Chipotle Pepper
• 1 cup of fat-free half and half

First cut the corn from the cob, and scrape the cobs to get out the excess "milk".

Break the corn cobs in 2-3 pieces, and add to the water in a saucepan. Bring to boil, and then simmer for 20 mins.

While corn stock is simmering, saute the onion in butter until translucent (about 5 mins).

Remove corn cobs from stock. Add the onions, potato, corn cut from cob and seasoning. I added a pinch of chipotle pepper.

Bring to boil, and then partially cover and simmer for about 30 mins. I cooked mine on too low of a heat (without bringing it to boil first), so I found the potato still undercooked after 30 mins. At that point, I had to bring it to boil, and then simmer it for about another 10 minutes.

While the chowder was simmering, I saute some tilapia in olive oil and seasoned it simply with a little Lawry's seasoning salt.

Once cooked thoroughly, I added a can of creamed corn, as the chowder wasn't thick enough for me. Let it heat through. After the chowder is ready, stir in the half and half, and then just heat through. Don't boil it. Just simmer it until heated through.

Once heated through, I ran about a third of the chowder through a blender. Ideally I would have used a hand blender on the chowder to thicken it, but I don't yet have one. So I pureed part of the chowder, and then stirred it back in to the remaining chowder.

To plate the meal, I drained out a ladle of the chowder and poured the chowder onto the plate...

...and topped that with the tilapia, and then ladled a little more chowder over the top of the fish.

Add a sprinkle of chipotle powder on top of the bowl full of the chowder.

And there you go! Yummy!