HOME & LIVING B2 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD CHOWDER Continued from Page B1 recipe and defi nitely will not reveal the composition of Sez’, she did give me a few hints. She uses red onion (I decided to go with both red and yellow for my chowder), but she recommends against putting any red onion scraps in homemade vegetable stock (though, per Brown, yellow onions are fi ne for that purpose). She thumbs- upped my plan to make a quick-ish vegetable stock using the corn cobs and day-of vegetable scraps for those of us who fail to keep a bag of scraps going in the freezer (bad us!). She also disclosed the proper dairy substitute: oat milk. (Also: I happened to mention that I do not like green bell pep- pers because they make me burp green-pepper burps, which she ha-ha’d. And — guess what — the great Kristi Brown does not like green peppers, either, so all the rest of you who do are offi cially wrong.) I’m just going to state fl atly that the vegan corn chowder I have devised is not as great as Brown’s. It is, however, very, very good and absolutely worth making. Maybe someday she will give us her recipe and/or Sez’s. I would encourage you to experi- ment with the spices here — I’ve kept mine pretty light-handed, though a little bit of zip from the cay- enne does come through. Like Brown’s, this corn chowder evolves beautifully with reheating, thickening and richening (defi nitely a word), if you don’t eat it all at once (or eat all the left- overs cold). Choose your corn care- fully. The leaves should be nice and green, not dry- looking, and the silk peeking out ideally should be pale and even slightly sticky. Be bold in peeling the husk back — not just at the tip, but all the way down. You deserve good corn! Look for plump, fi rm kernels. And be sure to buy our marvelous Washington sweet corn, for it is the best, as I’m sure Brown would agree if I were to pester her about it. B.J.C.’S VEGAN CORN CHOWDER (With thanks to chef Kristi Brown) Serves 6 as a soup course, may- be 4 for a lunch or light supper OK, vegans, please don’t yell at me, but for those who consume dairy, the oat milk/ creamer may be swapped out for half-and-half (preferably organic), Come Check Out Our New Location & New Menu! and those defi nitely-other-peo- ple-not-us-vegans also might in- corporate a little butter in with the olive oil. And Kristi Brown said this, not me: Her original, nonvegan corn chowder recipe had salmon in it, so ... — Bethany Jean Clement 6 medium ears fresh, sweet Washington state corn 2 medium carrots — 1 whole and 1 small-diced 3 ribs of celery — 2 whole and 1 small-diced (plus any celery tops) 1 medium yellow onion, 1/2 diced and the other 1/2 left alone 1/2 medium red onion, diced (reserve the other 1/2 for a salad or something) 4 fresh bay leaves or 2 dried Kosher salt White pepper 3 tablespoons high-quality extra virgin olive oil (plus more for garnish) 2 tablespoons fl our 1 large potato, peeled and 1/4 -inch diced (about 1 1/4 cup) 1 small-to-medium sweet potato (orange or white, up to you), peeled and 1/4 -inch diced (about 1 cup) 1 cup unsweetened oat-milk creamer or oat milk 1/2 teaspoon coriander 1/2 teaspoon cumin Dash of cayenne Chives, snipped, and/or green onion, fi nely sliced on the diagonal, plus more olive oil for garnish 1. Shuck it! Then stand each ear of corn on its butt end on a tray or in the bottom of a large shallow TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022 bowl, and use a sharp knife to carefully cut the kernels off , reserving the cobs (and, of course, the kernels). Warning: If your corn is nice and fresh, this will be messy. (Optional: Some recipes say to “milk the corn,” which involves run- ning the back of a knife down the denuded cobs to get all the juices out. It’s my sense that we’ll extract those precious corn-fl uids by mak- ing the stock next, and I’m also just going to say that life feels too short to spend time milking corn.) 2. Break your corn cobs in half and put them in a 3½ — or 4-quart pot, along with 1 whole carrot broken in half, 2 ribs celery broken to fi t the pot (plus any celery tops), the 1/2 yellow onion, 2 fresh bay leaves or 1 dried, 1 teaspoon salt and a sprinkle of white pepper. Add water to almost cover, about 4 to 6 cups (the pot will be crowded). Bring to a boil, give it a stir and then reduce heat to simmer for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through. Remove from heat, and let rest. 3. Heat the olive oil for a minute or two in a large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, then add the diced yellow and red onions, diced carrot and diced celery. Salt and white pepper them, stir and cook about 6-8 minutes, stirring again about every 2 minutes. Sprinkle on fl our and cook, stirring, another 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat. 4. Carefully strain your stock through a colander into a large bowl. 5. Add the potato, sweet potato, 1 teaspoon salt, a sprinkle of white pepper, and 2 fresh bay leaves or 1 dried to your vegetables in the large pot, then add enough strained stock to cover it all. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, stir and continue cooking until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes, stirring maybe every 5 minutes. 6. Add the oat milk/creamer, corn and spices, then stir and sea- son lightly with salt and pepper. Add a little more stock or water if it seems very thick, though the corn will release a fair amount of liquid, so don’t panic. Turn up heat to bring back to bubbling, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 15 more minutes, stirring occasionally. 7. Add more salt and white pepper to taste — you probably want to add a teaspoon or more of salt, a little at a time, to balance the sweetness of the corn, sweet potato and onions. Don’t be shy! 8. Simmer another 15 minutes to half an hour, stirring occasion- ally. At this point, the chowder should be thickened and ready to serve; cooking more or reheating later will thicken matters further, amalgamating the vegetables and breaking down the corn, which is also good. 9. Garnish with chives or green onion plus a swirl of your high-quality olive oil, and enjoy. Also good served cold during summer heat. 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