Hi.  My name is Mark and this is my cooking blog.

I get asked a lot for my recipes, so I decided to start this cooking blog.  What you’ll find here will be my recipes and my variations on others’ recipes, my cooking tips and who knows what else. 

I should say up front that I’m lactose intolerant (check out my lactose intolerance site www.nowhey.org) and I also try to live a low-carb lifestyle.  So the recipes you’ll find here will generally be devoid of milk and milk products and try, wherever possible, to be low in carbs.

I hope you enjoy the site and the recipes.

Mark

This is one of my (and my daughter’s) favorite soups at a Chinese restaurant. The first time I made it, my daughter asked what restaurant I brought it home from. You can make this the easy way – with a can of creamed corn – or my preferred way where you cream your own tastier corn. It doesn’t take that long to make (either way) and tastes great. This should feed about 4 people.

Ingredients

3 cups of chicken broth (made with 1 tbs Better Than Bullion)
2 ½ cups of frozen white corn (or 1 can creamed corn)
½ cup of water
1 tbs cornstarch
¼ tsp pepper (white or black – see notes)
¼ tsp onion powder (optional)
¼ tsp garlic powder (optional)
2 eggs or 2 ozs of egg substitute

In a 3 qt saucepan boil 3 cups of water and dissolve the 1 tbs of Chicken Better Than Bullion in it. I do this by boiling the water in my electric kettle and measuring it into the saucepan then I stir in the bullion.

Microwave two cups of the frozen corn for about 1.5 minutes to thaw it – you don’t need it to be cooked. Put this in a food processor with the standard blade and puree the corn – you can make it chunky or fine – it’s up to you, but it will look more like what you get in a restaurant if you just lightly chop the corn – just a few quick pulses will do the trick.   Put this along with the remaining ½ cup of whole corn (there’s no need to thaw the ½ cup of corn), the pepper, garlic and onion powder into the pot and stir well.  (The garlic and onion powder are optional but give the soup a little more interest.)  Bring just to the point of boiling and then reduce to a simmer.

Mix the cornstarch in with the ½ cup of cold water to form a light slurry and stir slowly into the pot.

If you are using real eggs, whisk them until they are well mixed. If you are using egg substitute (like Egg Beaters) then measure out two ounces. While rapidly spinning the soup mixture with a spoon, slowly drizzle in the eggs to form egg flowers.

If you don’t want to mess with frozen corn you can substitute 1 can of creamed corn. I made it this way the first time and while it was OK, I forgot that creamed corn is made with the normal yellow corn which isn’t nearly as tasty as white corn.

You can use either white or black pepper – I use black but if the little black specs in this yellow soup bother you, then use white.