Corn-Tomato Chowder with Shrimp; Skillet Cornbread; Cantaloupe Martini

Three delicious wins for dinner.

I love making soup, but I think I've only done it once since the CSA started because...it's hot. But I love corn soups, and the veggies this week were just begging for it. And it's not excruciatingly hot today.

So I made this corn-tomato chowder with shrimp:

First I peeled some shrimp and cut the kernels off the 3 cobs of corn. Then I made a stock by boiling the corncobs and shrimp shells together for about 15 minutes, strained it, and added a bit of salt. I've read about both corncob stock and shrimp stock but never tried them...it was pretty easy, makes use of stuff you'd throw away anyway, and was pretty flavorful.

Next I chopped an onion, a garlic clove (the cloves from the head of garlic we got are enormous!) and the purple bell pepper (which mostly tastes like a green pepper; it's not sweet). I sauteed these in olive oil, then added some chopped potato. Seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, and...of course, smoked paprika. Sorry, I know I use that in everything, but it's so tasty! Then covered with the shrimp/corn stock and simmered til the potatoes were tender.

I chopped one of our red tomatoes and some of the yellow pear tomatoes, and threw these in at the last minute along with the corn kernels and some chopped shrimp:

To finish it I added a little half & half, the juice of half a lime, some hot sauce, and some chopped fresh lemon basil from our garden.

Summer in a bowl!

Now that I have an iron skillet, it was time to give "real cornbread" a try. I used this recipe for "double-corn cornbread," which I think is from America's Test Kitchen. I used frozen corn kernals as the 3 fresh ears we got were small and didn't yield much. I don't think it makes much difference in this as they're pureed. I also used a small container of Greek yogurt instead of the sour cream. Not sure if that affected things, but I found I had to add a fair amount of milk to get the batter pourable. Thought about adding some chopped jalapeno, but...didn't feel like chopping a jalapeno. Turned out pretty well though:

I know the recipe's probably not *real southern* cornbread (I think the sugar and sour cream/yogurt are frowned upon by purists)...but whatev', I'm from upstate NY!

Finally, I decided to get fancy with the cantaloupe. I'm not a huge cantaloupe eater so I decided to puree it and make a cantaloupe martini! Cubed cantaloupe went in a blender with the juice of half a lime, a bit of sugar and some water. Strained that, and then mixed most of the juice with some vodka & ice in a cocktail strainer. Voila!

rob proclaimed it to be pretty strong, which means...I had to drink almost 3 of these. My life is hard.