Delicious, easy to make, filling, and pretty darned healthy if you ask me.  Pair it with some cornbread muffins or fresh baked bread and enjoy.

Ingredients:
2 large sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons butter (or grapeseed oil)
1 small onion diced (1/4")
1/2 lb chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 chicken breast cut into thin strips along the bias
1 1/2 cups whole kernel corn (2 to 3 ears fresh)
1 or 2 jalapenos, minced
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon Sea Salt

In a heavy bottomed pot, saute onion and mushrooms until softened.  Peel and cube sweet potato and add to pot.  Add enough chicken stock to just cover potatoes.  Boil until fork tender, about 10 minutes.  Use a potato masher mash the potatoes without draining liquid.  You will end up with a thicker stock but still have some chunks of potato.

Add the remaining broth, chicken, corn, and jalapenos.  Bring back to boil and then reduce to a simmer for an additional 10 minutes or until chicken and corn has cooked.  Add the cream and salt to taste.

Notes:
I used 3 jalapenos and seasoned with pepper and garlic at the end of cooking.  It had a good amount of heat but wasn't too spicy.  The next day the heat had increased and it was a bit spicier but still not overly so.  It has great flavors and other ingredients could be added to it to suit your tastes.  When I made it, it gave us 6 good sized bowls of chowder.  For a dairy free option, leave out the cream, 1/2 a cup in that much soup isn't that much to begin with so many people would probably never know it was missing.  You could puree the sweet potato, making it a bit smoother, but then I would suggest cooking the mushrooms and onion in a separate pan so you don't puree the beautiful mushrooms!

The following makes one souffle.  Two could share it, but why would you want to?

2 eggs
1/3 cup Cheddar Cheese
Butter
Milk
Seasonings
10oz Souffle Ramekin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter the bottom of the ramekin.  Put shredded cheese into a glass measuring cup.  Add enough milk to 1/4 cup.  Add eggs and seasonings and mix well.  Pour into ramekin and place in the oven.  Bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until it has risen and is set.

The trick is they have to be served hot from the oven to whomever is eating them quickly.  Gordon Ramsay says 90 seconds.  I concur.  They start to deflate if you take your time.  I set one on the cold countertop and I heard it pop and start to hiss as it deflated.  They are easy to make, but they are also easy to fall.  The one up side, they still taste yummy, just a bit more flat.

I add salt, pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper as my seasonings.  I have also made it with different cheeses, Havarti and Parmesan had a nice texture.  Goat cheese turned a bit grainy.  I have added sliced tomatoes to the top halfway through baking (they didn't rise as much).  I also did one with cheddar and Canadian which was really yummy.  My next attempt is going to be cheddar, ham, granny smith apples and caraway.  I really like those flavors together.  I'll report how it turns out.

I love that I call Olympia home and that the sense of community is so strong amongst our friends and neighbors.  What has been accomplished in such a short amount of time is nothing less than amazing.  This project started as a small idea from the pricipal at Avanti High School.  A joint venture with Madison Elementary to have a garden.  Perhaps just a raised bed or two in the shared parking lot between the two schools.  A project that would get the kids from both schools working together.  There was interest and after a meeting of interested parties this idea evolved from a couple of raised beds in a parking lot to a magnificent working garden in what was once referred to as "The Madison Pond."  Parents, volunteers, students, and the community came together to make this project a reality.

This garden has already been a fantastic learning experience for the students, and they have already reaped the rewards in the form of salad and ownership.  Most of the students can tell you which plant they grew from a seed and then planted in the garden, what it is, and they are excited about it!  And it just isn't gardening they are learning, there have been reading lessons, math lessons, social studies (complete with a borscht and salsa garden) and it is all growing right outside the windows to the school from the tiny seed of an idea.

When we walk by the school during recess it is great to see that some of the kids actually spend their free time in the garden, walking the paths, checking for weeds, enjoying the space.  Community members and neighbors use it as a spot for picnics and to take care of it.  Food produced from the garden will go to families who need it and the Food Bank during the summer when kids are not in school.  It is truly amazing what has transpired from that tiny seed of an idea.

Just imagine what we could do as a community if we all put our little bit of effort into something.  A marshy portion of a field became a garden in a matter of a few months and a handful of work parties.  People who have no vested interest in either of the schools got involved.  We had adults and kids alike who were there for a baseball or soccer game during a work party pick up a shovel and pitch in, they wanted to be involved.  Amazing…simply amazing.

During this whole process a neighbor and photographer Steven Herppich came and took photos documenting the process and he was kind enough to put those photos into a very moving slide show.  It was shown at the garden dedication and it was very emotional for the adults but for the children as well.

And now you can see how far the garden has come, and the fabulous thing is, it is just going to continue to get better and amaze us all.

http://animoto.com/play/kR4NEGWY1jv4rSXEKG0N7g