Clam Chowder

We've been on a homemade soup kick lately in this house... lentil soup and crawfish bisque. Maybe it was the cold weather we had, or maybe it's because we just like soup. Now the temperatures are close to 80 again, and we're still in the mood for soup. ("I'm in the mood for soup... simply because you're near me.... ")

Yesterday, my husband opened up a can of clam chowder. He loves clam chowder and so do I. But I don't really like canned clam chowder because it always tastes too salty to me so I don't eat it. I've never made clam chowder before, but I got to thinking yesterday... how hard could it be?

And today became clam chowder day, so I want to type this down before I forget what I did. I didn't even bother looking into my cookbooks... I just sort of winged it, and it came out delicious.

First... half a large onion, sauted in a little bit of unsalted butter. When it got nice and browned, I added about 3 tblsp. of butter, then added about 1/3 cup flour and mixed it all together to let the flour 'cook' a little. Into that went about 2 1/2 or 3 cups of non-fat milk. Little salt and pepper. I let all of that get good and hot and it started to thicken so I turned the gas down a little so it wouldn't boil.

Into that mixture, I added two cans of whole baby clams, with the juice. I also had one of those "Chicken of The Sea" pouches of baby clams-- I added that also. While that was going on, I put two red-bliss potatoes into the microwave. I chopped up the potatoes, skin & all, and added those into the soup.

I let it all simmer... the soup stayed nice and thick... more salt and pepper. Delicious. That soup was really cooking up nicely. My husband tasted it, and we added a touch more pepper and a dash of Old Bay spice. The clam chowder took way less time than the lentil soup, and was even quicker to make than the crawfish bisque.

So... guess what we're having for dinner tonight?