Summer, at last!

Hello again. One would think that with twelve snow days there would have been a lot of time for blogging, but making up for those deceivingly tranquil days (by squeezing in weeks of missed classroom time in the remaining two months of school) proved harder than I thought.

1ST PRIZE!
First things first... Guess what the trophy below is for:

Yes... we did win a chicken wing cook-off! It was my first industrial kitchen experience since college and this time I did not have to throw away my shoes!

Heather preparing the approx. 250 wings with Chinese five-spice powder.

The marinade/sauce: soy sauce, vinegar, scallions, and some secret ingredients!

Meanwhile, at home we kept up with our cooking, especially through the use of new staples such as frozen duck breasts and crab cakes (from Whole Foods), a 10-lb. bag of jasmine rice (courtesy of Gail and Tee’s Thai dinner) and the seafood mix from Trader Joe’s, which Heather used for the chowder below.

So, here's to summer's culinary adventures, which I will discuss with increasing frequency!

WHAT TO DO WITH SOUR MILK?
We're in a week-long transition between the weekend in Sonoma (more on that in a different post) and two weeks in L.A. We decided on easy high-volume meals for lunch leftovers and freezing for when we get back.
Since we were gone so long, our milk almost went bad. Luckily, one can safely cook with sour milk, as is evidenced by both the cornbread and the seafoood chowder below:T
There are no specific directions for this meal, but here is the general idea:

1. Fry half a package of chopped bacon in a dutch oven or large pot.
2. After the bacon browns (remove bacon for now), saute carrots, onions, garlic, corn (we had some cobs left over), cubed potatoes in fat for a few minutes; add dried thyme
3. Pour in milk (I don't remember how much we had... two cups?), about 1/2 cup of heavy cream, and a liter of broth (keep in mind Heather eyeballed all of this); add cooked bacon
4. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add half a bag of frozen peas; 5 minutes later, add frozen seafood (1 lb. mix)
5. Depending on what broth you use, you may need salt; pepper for sure
Serve with cornbread in a bowl.

This is an excellent meal during the workweek because it yields a lot of leftovers. I'll post pics from Sonoma next time.
It's nice to be back!