Our Life Together: How to Chowder

Lawman had a lot of free time on his hands this week, so he made another batch of chowder. Since he had time like that, he photographed along the way a "how to" in case any of our three or four regulars wanna try this at home.
Before we get to that, we start off the update with "The Girl". She came down with the flu this week, doc confirmed it and gave her this neat mask to wear.

She was really excited about wearing it too.
And she grabbed a shot of "The Boy" trying his hand at adulting.

We're still at the stage where both of them think piling dirty dishes in the sink is "cleaning up after themselves." Baby steps.
Now, on to the chowder.

Dice up one whole onion, two potatoes, three carrots and as much celery as you like. Lawman prefers to use the tops and leafy part of the celery for cooking, he thinks it adds more zip, but it's your chowder, do what you feel.

Use at least four cans of clams. Lawman added one more can this week, because if some is good, more is better.

Open the cans and drain the clam juice into the diced veggies, put them on medium high heat, and cook the veggies down until they are tender.

While the veggies are getting happy, Lawman starts the sauce. 1 1/2 sticks of real butter, melted.
Then add 3/4 cup of flour. We like the local mills seasoned flour for our gravy and whatnot.

Add the flour to the melted butter and whisk it down until all the lumps are out.

Add one whole quart of half and half to the butter/flour mix and whisk until it's well mixed. Keep heat under it, but don't let it boil.
After the veggies are as tender as you want them, add the butter/flour mix to the veggies, turn down to medium low heat and keep a stir on it. Never let it come to a boil.

About ten minutes before serving, add the clams to the mix. All the clams need to do is warm up. If you cook them too long, they get tough. And nobody likes tough meat in their mouth.
We also made a batch of olive bread to go with our chowder.

We're not sure why everyone wouldn't cook in cast iron, but some folks resist it for whatever reason.
And Lawman made another batch of home made English muffins to start the week off. We enjoyed these all week long for breakfast.

Home made English muffins, home made butter, home made blood orange marmalade? Yes please!
We had family that was feeling a little down, so we made a batch of baked burritos and a batch of baked spaghetti with a pone of homemade baked bread and dropped it off to them.