Four's a crowd: August 2008

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Andy's Clam Chowder

I know a lot of people have asked for Andy's clam chowder recipie. Well here it is. and if you have not tried it, then you should. It is not too hard..but is fattening just to warn you!

Andy's Clam Chowder:

2 C. Celery
1 med. onion
1 (16 oz.) pkg. bacon (optional but good!)
3-4 large potatoes
2 (6 & 1/2 oz) cans of clams
1 can clam juice (optional to make more clammy)
1 1/2- 2 quarts milk
1 qt. halt & half
1 1/2 cup flour
1 stick of butter

Seasoning options: tobasco sauce, garlic, thyme
Yields: about 1 & 1/2 gallons of soup

chop veggies, , set aside. Dice bacon and in a deep sauce pan, cook. (this can be the pan that you are going to have all the soup in, so make it big!) Add butter. When butter is melted, add veggies. Reduce heat to medium low, cover, and let veggies sweat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add flour and simmer for another 5 minutes. Keep on low, it may burn! SLOWLY add milk and mix very well! Add about 1 cup at a time but if you add it too fast it may curdle (sp?) the milk. Add clams (and juice if you want it) and let simmer. Do NOT bring to a full boil. Stir occasionally. In seperate sauce pan add diced and seasoned potatoes and boil for about 20 minutes. Strain potaties. When soup is to a simmer, add potatoes and half & half. Season Soup. Thicken to desired consistency by adding a mixture of cornstarch and water. Enjoy!

I added some pictures of help clarify a few areas and just for fun!

The veggies chopped (don't worry if yours don't look
as good....andy is a freak of chopping...)

Starting the bacon- notice the size of the pot! HUGE!

Bacon, clams, veggies all simmering together

Chopping the potatoes

Stirring occasionally

The almost finished product (minus the potatoes)

The potatoes cooked and ready to put in.

Sorry no pictures of the final result. I guess i was
too hungry to stop and take a picture!

Silly jesse

One day Jesse was playing in his saucer, and I looked
at him and he had crumbs all over his face. I didn't
give him any crackers, but I just thought it was hilarious
that he somehow picture all of the crumbs off the saucer and
had them all over his face. He keeps me entertained!

Yellowstone National Park

Over this last weekend, Andy and I along with his family took a trip to yellowstone! It was my first trip to yellowstone so it was very enjoyable to me! I was able to see many beautiful sights and relax and have fun with everyone of andy's siblings! It was the first time in a long time that we had ALL done something together! These are not all the pictures because I forgot the camera on the first day. I will post more a little later.

The first night we got there, we went camping. Andy and I arrived around
11:30pm and it was COLD! Robert had gotten there earlier
and set up tents so we were able to go right to sleep. I was
worried about Jesse sleeping in the cold, but he only woke up
once, and other than that did great! Here are a few of the
morning pictures!
Robert just waking up:

Auntie Lisa keeping jesse warm!

Dad keeping Jesse warm! The morning was very cold as well!

One of our first stops the second day was Mammoth. It
is a sulfur flat of color and water and it was beautiful. This is
a natural cone shaped out of who knows what...

Andy being andy. My camera was unable to do these pictures jusitice
but it was a beautiful sight!

I hardly ever had to carry Jesse and he was quite
spoiled the whole trip! Everyone wanted to carry him
so I didn't complain! We bought a back pack for him
to sit in and it saved us! This is his auntie tiffany carrying
him.

He was pretty happy! he stayed cool and
enjoyed the ride!

More of mammoth! It was beautiful!

The hike up was all up-hill so it was a little tiring. But
worth it of course. Everyone was just quiet while
they were hiking and were counting the steps to the top!

This is coming back down. There was a lot of us!

More beautiful colors!

Here is a picture of the lower yellowstone falls. Not the
bigger one, but the one that you can see closer up. It
was an awesome sight! We later went to a ledge
right over the falls (if you look closely you can see
people), but i forgot to take my camera!