Après Eats: Potato Bacon Corn Chowder

Let’s set the scene: It’s Sunday evening and you just skied hard – 8 am wake-up for a failed attempt at first chair, lunch and then a couple more before it got too dark and cold. You’re still hungover from Saturday shenanigans, where you got to carried away buying pitchers for all your snow-friends at the bar. It’s not like the days when you were 18 21 and can bounce back at the crack of dawn anymore. You think your pounding booze-headache burned off during the full day on the mountain, but you just can’t keep sipping that hot cocoa with a heavy splash of rum – more like a small waterfall of rum – to make you feel just that much better. Your body is finally warm and pupils search under heavy-eyelids to find Valhalla on Netflix; your girlfriend on the far end of the couch is feeling just about the same, and a buddy on the sofa with a beer in his hand, seems to sink deeper into the couch than you. Here’s a killer après eats recipe.

What’s on the stove? Potato. Bacon. Corn Chowder. Potato Bacon Corn Chowder. PotatoBaconCornChowder. It’s like that stupid “Puppy Monkey Baby” SuperBowl commercial – mix 3 things and get something great (oh my God, the advertisement worked). It’s the perfect combo of belly-filling, good-tasting lounge-inducing food.

Here’s what you need:

• 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk (don’t get fat-free, no diets on the mountain)
• 1 can (14 oz) creamed corn
• 1/2 lb bacon (I put 3/4 lb because, bacon)
• 1/4 cup chopped onion (tip: 1/4 of an actual onion)
• 5 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
• salt & pepper to taste (can’t go wrong with garlic salt)
• Optional: pinch of flour to thicken as desired

Prep this the night before and you don’t really have to work.

1. Throw potatoes in the pot, add water to cover. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to medium heat and cook, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Stir here and there.
2. In the meantime, cook bacon, sauté onion and open condensed milk and creamed corn cans (sauté onion in bacon grease at your own risk – I got another pan dirty).
3. Drain potatoes, but keep 1 cup of the potato water!
4. Throw in corn, milk, spices and potato water back into pot and simmer until heated through, then chop/rip up bacon into smaller bits and throw that in along with your sautéed onion. Give it a stir.
5. Optional: If you want a thicker chowder, sprinkle a little bit of flour and mix in – give it time to simmer and actually thicken before adding more. Less is more!

This much should serve about 6. That’s just enough to divide between 3 enormous bowls, not finish and fall asleep on the couch with. Cheers!

#apreseats