Shoes and Soup

I went to Walmart tonight to get stuff to make dinner and remembered that I needed to get a father's day card.  Generally, I hate shopping for cards because it takes so long to find the "right" one.  It seems that these days cards are either inappropriate or really cheesy, which was the case with the first two I looked at.  Then I spotted another and it turned out to be perfect, I mean perfect!  The message was fitting, but it was the picture that sold me-it was of shoes!  And at the time, not just any shoes, when you see the picture I took you'll see what I mean.

Most perfect card ever!

When I baked muffins the other day it gave me the itch to be in the kitchen more, and since today was rainy and dreary I wanted to make soup.  And last night at Carabba's I had seafood cannelloni which was amazing, so that nailed the decision to make some sort of seafood soup.  I started searching online and found a recipe for Shrimp and Corn Chowder with Sun-Dried Tomatoes.  I like all those things separately so I figured why not try them together?  The only thing I was a little hesitant about was that it called for fresh chives.  Even though I cook a decent amount, I don't usually use recipes that call for fresh herbs and spices and things like that.  I'm not exactly sure why, I think maybe because you have to cut some certain ways and stuff like that and since I don't know all those things, I tend to stay away.  But I figured chives couldn't be that difficult, I mean, Wendy's puts them on their baked potatoes.  So I got all my ingredients and headed home to fix dinner...

Shrimp and Corn Chowder with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

by Campbell's Kitchen

Ingredients

1 (10.75oz) can of condensed cream of potato soup

1 1/2 cups of half and half

2 cups of whole kernel corn

2 tablespoons of sun-dried tomatoes cut into thin strips

1 cup of small or medium cooked shrimp - peeled and deveined

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

black pepper to taste

Directions

1) Heat the soup, half and half, corn, and tomatoes in a 3-quart saucepan over medium heat to boil.  Reduce heat to low and cook for 10 minutes.

2) Stir in shrimp and chives and cook until hot and bubbling.  Season with pepper.

Getting started...

Chives, turned out to be so easy!

The finished product with some crusty bread.

So, how did it turn out?  It was really good, and easy!  I will definitely make it again, but with a few changes:

1) This recipe didn't call for any salt, but I would add some.

2) I would use less corn, maybe 1 2/3 a cup.

3) And I would add more tomatoes.  They provided a tangy contrast to the sweetness of the corn, but the ratio was just too unbalanced.