It seems like forever since I decided to start sharing my food ideas and recipes with you all. I often hear that living a plant based lifestyle is too difficult, too expensive, lacking in protein, boring… the list goes on and on- and is so not true! My hope is that through this blog you can use my culinary training (Yep. It was a blast being the only vegetarian in culinary school-ha!) and over ten years of vegetarian/vegan/raw trial and error to your benefit. Let me show you how simple it really is to create delicious, healthful meals from real whole ingredients every day. Now…without further ado, my first official recipe post! I hope you enjoy!

I was inspired by the beautiful organic summer corn that seems to be everywhere these days and decided that my Green Chile Corn Chowder would be a great start to this blogging adventure! 

Green Chile Corn Chowder

Vegan and Gluten free.

1 small onion

1 stalk celery

1 medium pasilla pepper

1 small red bell pepper

2 cloves garlic- minced

3 medium yukon gold potatoes

2 ears of corn, shucked, roasted and removed from cobb (or 2 cups frozen fire roasted corn)

2 tablespoons vegan buttery spread or coconut oil

5 cups vegetable stock (if not home made, low sodium)

1/4 cup cashews- soaked at least 4 hours, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp cumin

salt and pepper to taste

• Cut the onion, peppers, celery and potatoes into a small dice.
• In a medium sized pot, melt the buttery spread (or coconut oil) and sauté the onions, peppers, celery, cumin, a little salt, pepper and garlic until the onions are translucent.
• Add the vegetable stock, corn and potatoes and bring to a simmer.
• While the chowder simmers toss the cashews, nutritional yeast and 1/2 cup water into the blender. Blend until smooth. If you do not have a high speed blender this make take a few blend cycles. Leave this mix in the blender and set aside.
• Cover and simmer the chowder until then potatoes are soft and falling apart.  About 35 minutes. Taste your chowder for seasoning and add a little salt and pepper if you feel it needs it. Trust your instinct, you’ve got this!
• When the potatoes are soft, remove about 1/2 of the chowder and carefully place into the blender with the cashew mix.
• Blend until almost smooth, then pour back into the pot with the rest of the chowder.
• Bring back to a simmer and cook 5-10 minutes more or until thickened, check your seasoning one more time and serve! Let me know how yours turned out!