Vegetable Chowder Soup

I love soups! I can drink soup anytime of the year where as for hubby and some people apparently soup is great for winter months to warm our bodies and is too hot for summer because is already hot in summer. I'm from Malaysia and we drink soup all the time therefore it doesn't really bother me whether it is summer or winter when I feel like having soupy food. I am starting to not like to drink soup in the middle of scorching summer though (maybe I'm with hubby too much :P) but I'm don't mind it actually and since hubs doesn't care for soup in summer I just don't make it because I don't want to finish leftovers myself.
Anyway the weather has cooled down a wee bit nothing major is still about low 90's F and hubby is still coughing plus so tired and drained from working so much that he didn't have much appetite to eat. I don't know what to make for dinner and I've been cooking rice for the past few days so I knew he doesn't really want to eat rice again last night although he said he don't care.
I came across a soup recipe and I knew I had to try it but I also know that it is still summer so I wasn't sure whether hubs would reject to the idea. I asked hub what he wanted for dinner and he didn't care and was too tired to think about it. So I told him that we were having soup and garlic bread and did not complain what so ever.

I knew I had most of the ingredients needed hence I didn't need to go out to buy any thing else even if I didn't have it I thought I would make do with what I had. In the evening, I started getting my ingredients ready. I also made sure the hubs called me when he was on his way back so I that it'll be just in time for the soup to be ready when he gets home.

Recipe adapted from here
Ingredients
1/2 chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup butter
1 cup each diced potato, celery, cau­li­flower, carrot and broc­coli(I didn't have cauliflower so I omitted that)
3 cups water
3 chicken bouil­lon cubes (or just 3 cups of chicken broth to replace water and bouil­lon)
1 tea­spoon salt(omitted)
3 garlic cloves or 1-2 tsp of garlic powder
1/4 tea­spoon pepper
1/2 cup flour or arrowroot powder
2 cups milk (I used about 3 cups)
1 Tbls minced fresh pars­ley
1/8-1/4 tsp of each the following spices: paprika, coriander, ground mustard (increase as desired)
2-3 cups shred­ded ched­dar cheese (can be adjusted as desired, as I rarely use more than 2 cups of cheese)
*optional-1 cup of meat (sausage/deli meat/ground beef or pork or chicken-anything you have)

Method

In a Dutch oven or large pot, saute green pepper, garlic, onion and butter until tender. Add vegetables, meat, water, bouil­lon, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 20 min­utes or until the veg­eta­bles are tender. Com­bine flour and milk until smooth; stir into pan. Allow to thicken at a low temperature. Add the pars­ley and other spices. Just before serv­ing, stir in the cheese until melted. Yield: 6-8 servings. This chowder freezes very well also! Just allow room for expansion.

p/s: I had no time to take my own picture because we gobbled down the soup so fast that I only have about a scoop of soup left!

It took a little longer to soften the vegetables than I thought. Since I had a huge pot and didn't want any left overs I called Uncle Richie and Aunt L to see if they wanted soup and bread for dinner which they said yes. Hubby said that it sounds so french when I told him we were having soup and bread lol.

Everyone loves this soup I for one because I love chowder soup and this one actually taste like the one you can get at the restaurant. I am so happy with this recipe and most of the ingredients I actually have in my refrigerator or freezer. I added the cup of meat since we were going to only have soup for dinner and nothing else so I figured so meat in the soup would be a nice. I used deli meat because when hubby buys them and he don't finish them that week I'll put it in the freezer before it goes bad. I will use them in omelet or I'll toss some in western soup that I make.

I will definitely make this soup again especially in winter because the soup is so nice and warming. You can always modify the recipe to adapt to ingredients you have available.