Inspired by the killer demo by Ingrid Hoff­mann at the Sum­mit Wine & Food Fes­ti­val last week (more on that later), I wanted some­thing light and easy for din­ner with fresh ingre­di­ents.  Trav­el­ing on the back roads to and from Sum­mit, New  Jer­sey, I noticed that they had a bunch of lit­tle farm stands with sig­nage that her­alded the arrival of Jersey’s bounty.    I stopped at Sweet Life Farms and I got to shop­pin’ with a bunch of farm fresh good­ies for my pantry and, quite frankly, it was cheaper than going to your local Whole Pay­chex.  Plus, two of the main ingre­di­ents in this recipe are fresh corn and toma­toes and, hello, I WAS in New Jersey.

I decided to impro­vise a bit with this recipe and, like Ingrid says, use her recipes for inspi­ra­tion and make them your own.  The end result – a tried & true recipe that will replace ANY canned corn soup that you might have in your pantry.

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MEXICAN CORN SOUP

Adapted from Ingrid Hoffmann

Ingre­di­ents:

• 4 ears of fresh corn
• 2 toma­toes, cored and chopped roughly
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• 1/2 tsp. of dried oregano, prefer­ably dried
• 1/2 tsp. of smoked paprika
• 1 medium roasted poblano pep­per, chopped
• 4 slices of thick bacon
• 1 small onion or 1/2 of a medium onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup heavy cream or half & half (optional)
• 3 tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup queso fresco, crum­bled (or, alter­na­tively – a MILD feta cheese)
• Sour Cream & Tor­tilla chips for garnish

Direc­tions

First, roast the poblano pep­per over either an open flame on a gas range or under a broiler.  Once the pep­per is roasted, place the pep­per in a plas­tic bag and steam for 10 min­utes.  Once pep­per is steamed, remove the skin and deseed the poblano.  Chop the pep­per finely and set aside.

Using a sharp knife, remove the corn ker­nels from the cobs.  Reserve half of the corn ker­nels for later and use and place the remain­ing corn ker­nels in a blender (DO NOT USE A FOOD PROCESSOR  – TRUST ME – HUGE MESS!  Not like I tried it or any­thing *cough cough*).

To the blender, add toma­toes, 2 cups of chicken stock, smoked paprika and oregano.  Puree until smooth and set aside.

Over medium heat, cook the bacon in a large saucepan, turn­ing once until brown & crisp.  Drain the bacon on a paper towel lined plate and set aside.  Add the onion to the bacon fat in the saucepan and cook until the onion turns translu­cent.  Add the poblano and gar­lic and stir for another minute.

To the onion, pep­per and gar­lic mix­ture, add the corn puree to the saucepan with an addi­tional 2 cups of chicken stock.  Bring to a low boil and add the reserved corn ker­nels.  Sim­mer over medium-low heat until the soup has thick­ened (about 20 min­utes or so).   Stir occa­sion­ally and sea­son with salt and pepper.

To fin­ish, mix in the heavy cream and half of the pars­ley and heat through.  To serve, gar­nish with the remain­ing pars­ley, crum­bled bacon, the queso fresco and tor­tilla chips.

So good on a chilly fall evening.

Gath­er­ing the ingredients

Time for the bacon – (and, btw – Ingrid’s Sim­ply Deli­cioso Caldero ROCKS – no mess, no fuss.)

Oops – I almost for­got the poblano!

Best use for a Bundt pan ever!

Now, DO NOT – stress DO NOT put it in a food proces­sor.  Oy what a mess

Instead, fol­low Ingrid’s instruc­tions and into the blender goes the fresh Jer­sey corn and tomatoes

A lit­tle cream adds to the rich­ness of the soup

Enjoy!