One of the things I have enjoyed about Facebook is you see different things. If life doesn’t take you to the library to check out various magazines, Facebook brings it to your computer screen.
Provided you ‘like’ said magazine.
Now why I ‘liked’ Southern Living magazine in the first place is beyond me. I am not from the south, I have no plans to move to the south (I have a low heat tolerance), and I have only a few relatives who live in the south.
But this magazine also does drop-dead gorgeous pics of homes. I am willing to guess I drooled over something I discovered by accident.
Right now I am out of work. I was laid off – which is a bummer. But I am still spending a lot of time on my computer looking for new jobs. And that means when I need a break from the depressing grind of filling out yet another online application and survey, I go to Facebook.
Image from Southern Living
Last week, Southern Living puts up a recipe for Shrimp Chowder. They have a picture to go along with it and the picture looks glorious.
The shrimp is floating happily with pieces of potato and tiny bits of parsley. Oyster crackers are strewn about to soak up the wonderful broth that you know will taste wonderful once you make it.
I decided right there and then that Saturday night’s soup was going to be this seafood delight. I announced to the kids what we were going to have and that prompted the 16-year-old to make other plans as he does not like shrimp.
The others were in and even the husband seemed ready to have something a little special. During the week he had bought a double long bread from Wal-mart. We had one half for supper during the week and save the rest for Saturday. However, our dog has been on a bread kick for the last month or two.
Somehow between Friday night, when I last saw the loaf, and Saturday night, the dog made off with the bread and ate it all up without the rest of us seeing him do it.
In the pot
You can find the recipe through this link. It was very easy to put together. I started with a chopped onion in an aluminum pot.
The onion sautéed for about 8 minutes. That alone smelled good. Then I added the two cans of cream of potato soup, 3 1/2 cups of milk, and a touch of red cayenne pepper. I only added a touch because my 8-year-old is not a fan of spicy foods. He loves shrimp but he can leave the pepper on the side.
While different portions are simmering, I start cleaning the shrimp. The recipe calls for raw shrimp but my store did not have raw shrimp in the size I wanted. I needed the kind that comes 50-60 in a pound. So I compromised and bought pre-cooked shrimp in that size.
This made cleaning of the shrimp easier and some people may have come into the kitchen to make sure the shrimp was tasty. All I had to do was gently but firmly remove the tails. Once they were cleaned, the shrimpies went into the pot.
Parsley from my herb garden
Next up was chopping up the parsley.
Last year, I had herbs in containers on my front porch. I mixed them with the volunteer snapdragons and it was quite pretty. But it never seemed as if the parsley took off.
When the weather became too cold to stay out, the parsley and rosemary pots came in. That is when two sprouts really took off on the parsley. I would prefer the plant get a little more bushy so those two tall stems came into the kitchen.
I chopped them up nicely after putting in the cheese in the soup and waited for everyone to be ready to eat.
Serving Suggestion
While setting the table, I put out the leftover Monterrey Jack cheese and the small bottle of red pepper. Oyster crackers bought at the last-minute also joined us for supper.
I drank a blush with the soup although I am sure something a little sturdier would have been the better choice.
The 8-year-old complained about the amount of red pepper while the husband added more to his bowl.
By the time we were dome eating for the night, I noticed that there was only one serving left. That went to my daughter after she got home from a school dance.
The next day, one of the 16-year-old’s friends asked if there was any soup left.
He was disappointed.
Notes from Rumbly Cottage 