New England Corn Chowder - from Auntie Betsy

The reason why you need this recipe in your repertoire is because:
a) You can make it entirely with ingredients you should always have on hand. Keep some bacon in the freezer if you don't go through it fast enough, or just as a backup. I always do. The other stuff is either pantry staples, dairy staples or canned.
b) It is damned good.

Looking over this recipe, I have to admit that I can't remember making it exactly as written, but must have, because I used to be (*still am*) (*some of the time*) a stickler for by-the-book-recipe-following. I am going to add one minor change of my own (in parentheses). Go as crazy as you want. I bet it would be good with red peppers, or heck, what if you threw in some kind of beans? I probably never will, being kind of a purist (whatever that means) when it comes to corn chowder, but please yourselves.

The recipe:

4 slices bacon
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cups diced, peeled potatoes (I don't peel)
1 17-oz can creamed corn
(1 whatever-sized can corn niblets, drained)
2 cups milk
1 T butter

I'm not actually going to copy the recipe as written, because having read the whole thing, I think it's unnecessarily complicated, so here's my simplified version.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add the potatoes and simmer until soft. DRAIN. Meanwhile, fry the bacon. Remove from heat and crumble (when it cools) or chop. Sauté the onions in the bacon fat. (Mmmm.) Drain off some fat if you feel like feeling healthy or if there is really an obscene amount.

Add the potatoes to the onions, along with the creamed corn and corn and milk, simmer five minutes more, crumble in bacon and serve.

(This has been edited for clarity and taste.)

There is absolutely no reason why you couldn't make this with frozen (or, gasp, fresh!) corn. What do you keep on hand? Use that. I mean, as a substitute for the niblets, of course. You can't substitute anything for creamed corn. And the recipe I have says that it's for a crockpot, but I can't actually see any good reason to make it in a crockpot. So don't. Start to finish, it's only about, what, forty minutes max. Absolute max. But you can hold off on it, it'll be fine. Think of it as a great, easy, delicious weekday meal. Grab a baguette from the bakery and whip up a green salad if you don't really believe that corn is a vegetable.