Crab and Corn Chowder

I had a taste for chowder today so decided to make one of my favorites.  The recipe is a corn chowder recipe I've been making for a while (not sure where I found it), which I adapted to include crabmeat after having crab and corn chowder in a restaurant once.

Here's what you'll need:

a few slices of really good, thick cut bacon (seasoning bacon works great here)
1 small to medium sized onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
4-6 ears of corn (fresh, on the cob)
2 medium sized red potatoes, diced
4 cups half N half or light cream
6 oz. of lump crab meat
fresh thyme (dried is okay if that's all you have)

I start by chopping the bacon into smaller pieces and sauteing it in the bottom of a stock pot.  When the bacon is almost cooked I add 1 small onion, chopped, and chopped celery to the bacon and bacon drippings.  If your bacon produced a lot of drippings you'll want to remove some so that you're left with no more than 2-3 tablespoons of drippings along with the bacon, before you add the onion and celery. Cook until the onion is soft and translucent and the celery is tender, and all are lightly browned.

Meanwhile, cut the corn off of the cobs and set aside.  Keep the cobs too, you're going to use them to help flavor the stock of the soup.  Dice the potatoes.

When the bacon, onions and celery are done, add 4 cups of half N half to the bacon mixture along with 4 of the corn cobs, potatoes, the crabmeat and fresh thyme.  Simmer over low heat, stirring frequently, until the potatoes are tender. Remove the cobs from the soup base and set aside about 2 cups of the soup base.  Using a blender or food processor puree the 2 cups of the soup base and then return pureed soup base to the stock pot.

Add the fresh corn you cut off the cobs earlier to the soup and continue to simmer over a low heat until the corn is tender, stirring frequently, adding salt and pepper to taste.   

Enjoy!