Soups and Stews

I love New England Clam Chowder!  In fact, I love any soup that is creamy. Actually, any creamy food is on my favorites list really. Both my parents grew up on dairy farms, so I guess you could say it’s in my blood to love anything made with thick rich dairy products. This Cauliflower Clam Chowder certainly fits the bill for me.

Grass fed is always best if you can find it.  I have given up milk 90% of the time, but now and then I get a real craving for something creamy.

Click here to skip straight to the recipe!

I had never even tried clam chowder until I was in my twenties.  The first time I tried it was at a place called Bob Chinn’s Crab House in Wheeling, IL with my then fiance and now husband. Our first visit there was a first for many new foods.

Not only was it my first time to have tried New England clam chowder, but also my first taste of Crab Rangoons (They called them Marilyn’s Crap Crispies), and also Bob Chinn’s famous Mai Tais. I loved them all!  My husband and I revisited that place several times. I also have a Crab Rangoon recipe that you are going to love!

I really grew to love it a few years later when my husband worked, for a number of years at The Empress Casino in Joliet, IL. They had some of the best restaurants on their property! One of which was a fabuloups “All You Can Eat” buffet and included was usually New England clam chowder. I worked in that very buffet for a short time myself and pretty much had it every single day during my employment there.

Eventually, years later, I began my quest, so to speak, to make everything myself, and started making it from scratch too.

Now, traditional Clam Chowder uses bacon grease to saute’ the onions, but by the time I had started all this cooking everything from scratch, I had already given up eating pork. I use butter instead and it isn’t lacking any flavor, I promise you.

Of course, I’m sure you all probably also know that you typically use diced potatoes.

Well, one day, I didn’t have any potatoes, and I had purchased the baby clams and juice a while ago, planning on making some of my regular version soon.

About a month passed and my potatoes had gone bad by this time and I just happened to have my first ever half-gallon of raw milk.  I figured why not use the cauliflower I had in the refrigerator instead of potatoes.  I really wanted to use up my fabulous raw milk because I certainly didn’t want it to go to waste.

I had recently started trying to stay away from nightshade vegetables anyway, (you’ll see that eliminating certain foods is something I’ve done a whole lot of) and I know that cauliflower is often used as a replacement for potatoes. I really liked it! I’d say, all in all, cauliflower clam chowder is pretty darn fabulous!

For those of you that are cutting out potatoes for whatever reason but still allowing dairy, cauliflower clam chowder is a great recipe to make. My friend Angie tasted it too and said she thought it was great, so I’m anxious to see what my readers think once you try it.  Don’t forget to comment on here with your results when you do make this, please.

Enjoy!

Ani’s Real Cauliflower Clam Chowder

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 small sweet onion – diced
• 1 small head cauliflower – diced
• ½ cup diced carrots
• ½ cup diced celery
• 1 can baby clams – I used Bumble Bee for mine
• 1 jar clam juice – I used Bar Harbor for this one, but I’ve used Snow’s too before
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 TBSP all-purpose flour
• 1½ tsp pink Himalayan crystal salt – Aloha Bay is the brand I use
• ¼ good black pepper – My favorite is Frontier Organic Tellicherry Grinder

Instructions:

Chop onion, carrots, and celery into very a small dice size. Take half stick of butter and saute’ them on med-low heat until fork tender but not brown. This should take about 15 minutes. Once tender, add flour, and the rest of butter stick, stir, coating all vegetables in flour/butter mixture.  Make sure this cooks for about 2 minutes.  You can now add your cream slowly while stirring to incorporate and make a thick paste and so you don’t end up with clumps.  Add milk slowly, one cup at a time and bottled clam juice, and the juice from canned clams, but reserve the clams until the end. Once this is all incorporated add your chopped cauliflower. Stir and let simmer on low heat for about 15 to 20 minutes or until cauliflower is fork tender. Keep a close eye on it so it doesn’t boil over or overheat. You are looking for a very slow simmer here. Finally, once cauliflower is done, you may add your baby clams. (I like to chop them up even finer too. It’s just my personal preference that I don’t like to eat a whole clam, even baby ones.) Cook for another 5 minutes just to heat up the clams. Don’t overcook clams or they get tough.

Tips:

Don’t put too much pepper in cauliflower clam chowder.  Also, I have been cooking for a long time now and the type of pepper really does make all the difference in taste with so many things. That is why I am recommending this tellicherry pepper. If you want a traditional chowder just use 3 cups diced potatoes instead of cauliflower and it’s fabulous. You can also adjust the cream to milk ratio and go with more cream and less milk if you like a really thick soup. Check out Wikipedia if you want to find out a bit more about the history and origins of New England clam chowder.

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