Red Pepper Chicken Corn Chowder

 

Red Pepper Chicken Corn Chowder made with a blend of rice, potatoes, non-GMO freeze dried corn, onion, red bell pepper, celery, chives, dill, cayenne pepper, chicken broth, cheddar cheese, cream, chopped or shredded chicken and fresh cilantro. 

After five years of self-employment, there were a lot of perks that I looked forward to when I decided to find a full-time job. Among them were health insurance, actual human colleagues, and business travel.

The idea of traveling to New York, D.C., Seattle, Los Angeles and perhaps even internationally was a huge advantage for my sheltered self. Aside from the benefits of getting to work with people all over the country and meet them in person (and there are many, but that’s a different blog post) I love the side perks of traveling for work. I love to eat in different types of restaurants, sleep in king sized beds that I don’t have to make myself in the morning and yes, I take full advantage of the wake-up call service, which sometimes I wish I could find a way to get at home, too (a chihuahua helps, but sometimes he’s lazier than me).

This year, the amount of travel I do has increased and even though my increasing frequent flyer mile balance sometimes makes up for flight delay frustration, there is one thing that makes traveling more difficult: where I used to live alone with no real roots, now I have a wonderful boyfriend and an adorable dog waiting for me and there’s something to be said for the adage, ‘there’s no place like home.’

Before I get too sappy, there are other benefits that make it easy to travel for work: I love, love my job, I enjoy the things that I get to do when I’m traveling (meetings, networking, conferences, and above all, rewarding work that I believe in). Plus, I work from home so it all evens out to a nice balance of time at home and time away.

Even still, when I get home from four of five days away,  I crave two things: whatever pair of shoes I ultimately forgot and wished I’d brought the entire trip, and cozy comfort food.

I picked up a Frontier Soup mixes a few months ago for occasions just like this — busy nights where we want to eat a hearty home cooked meal but are not so much interested in cooking said meal. We loved the Florida Sunshine Red Pepper Corn Chowder and only made a few tweaks to doctor it up into a one-pot, stick to your ribs weeknight dinner recipe.

(I have absolutely no idea where I got the soup mix, but they’re available online and we’re excited to also pick up some of the other blends next time we see them at the grocery store).