Continuing Soup Education

Since I received such warm comments about yesterday's soup let's try another all time favorite around here.

Again...please remember that I am from the some-of-this-some-of-that school. Soup is pretty basic stuff and if you have all the ingredients on hand it's a pretty fast fix-although-it does taste even better the day after as many of these soupy-stew-like things do.

4-6 hungry guy servings

6 cans Snow's minced clams (about 6 oz each can-we like a lot of clams in our chowder) or at least 36 oz clams from fishmonger-they sell clams for Chowder in large soup containers here. More is better here

6 bottles Snow's all natural Clam juice or about 48 oz of clam or fish stock.

3-4 hot Italian sausage-remove from casing and crumble and brown.

1- very large sweet onion chopped and about a tablespoon of chopped garlic

half a large carrot diced and a large rib of celery chopped

3-4 med. Yukon gold potatoes diced

1- 26 oz package of Pomi chopped tomatoes- any chopped tomatoes will do, I just happen to like these they are organic and have no salt.

Old Bay seasoning

This recipe is the opposite of yesterdays in terms of the salt factor-Do not add any salt until this has had a chance to meld the flavors at the end. The sausage is salty and the clams and juice tend to be also. Even with the potatoes you can sometimes easily overdo the salt thing.

Brown sausage and drain most of fat-leave enough to cook chopped onions and diced carrots & celery garlic in -add potatoes, veggies, old bay and enough juice to cover everything and simmer til potatoes are fork tender. Add tomatoes and rest of juice and all clams and simmer low for about a half hour. Truthfully-I make this early in the day and let it sit and meld flavors. I often add more liquid at that point because the potatoes soak up a lot. If you're out of fish or clam stock add some vegetable stock or just a bit of water.

Taste for seasoning and add whatever you think you need-or not-the sausage has a lot of Italian flavor but I sometimes add basil or oregano-just a teeeny bit.

Sprinkle the bacon in at the last moment give it a stir and serve.

We sometimes add a couple of tablespoons of a good fresh salsa just to punch up the flavor.

This soup is spicy so it needs some bready accompaniment. Our local grocery has started carrying wonderful Indian flat bread called Naan and it's wonderful soft buttery flavor would be a great thing to serve with this. Bagels are always great too. My family loves those Bisquick cheddar biscuits only instead of cheddar I use some kind of a fontina and Reggio parm since I just can't leave anything alone

Enjoy!

Wow, I really have to do some quilty type thing soon.