Dark Days Challenge 3: Corn Chowder

Kerry and I both have colds so we have been thinking warm, soothing, comfort food. Soup easily falls into that category.

The local ingredients in this corn chowder are:

1. Bacon from Coffee Pot Ranch in Sheridan
2. Corn from the Roseville farmers' markets last summer that I froze
3. Leeks from Newcastle Produce
4. Garlic from the Natural Trading Company in Newcastle
5. Potatoes from Newcastle Produce

Despite my bests efforts, I have been unable to find a local source of butter or cream. I thought I had found something in Crystal Dairy but then discovered that they had been bought by Foster Farms. Not good.

So the cream and butter in the soup are well intentioned but do not meet the guidelines for Dark Days Challenge. I will keep searching.

A Dark Days Challenge blogger recently wrote about making popovers; that reminded me of HomeEc where we made them. That was a very long time ago. I too have trouble sourcing flour that is organic and local. I went to Married with Dinner's blog to find out where she gets her flour. She's the closest blogger geographically. That's when I discovered Giusto's Vita-Grain Flour Mills. I ordered five pounds, which I used to make the popovers. Not local but organic and they seem to have the ethical thing down pat. The flour bag can be composted. Used eggs from pasture-raised chickens that are local. We ate both soup and popovers for two nights.

One interesting thing about using bacon from a local source; there is very little fat. The recipe called for one slice of bacon to get enough fat; I needed four slices and still had to supplement some butter. We got the bacon flavor just not the bacon grease.

Hopefully we will both be healthy by next week.