As it turns out, two of the 14” trout Marty caught were quite a bit more than enough to feed the two of us.  His fishing buddy (and faithful blog reader) Randy suggested trout chowder made from the leftovers, so we decided to try it.  We made up one batch for ourselves and it was so delicious, that we decided to make another batch to share…..

I had received a invitation earlier this week from my friend Josie, to participate in a “Soup Swap.”  Josie tells me that this Sunday, January 16, was National Soup Swap Day, and that all over the country, soups were being exchanged.  The idea was this:  Each participant makes a soup and comes to the party with 6 quart containers of soup.  Soups are exchanged and each participants goes home with 6 different soups, and either doesn’t have to cook all week, or can put them in the freezer to eat later.  In addition, Josie made a big pot of veggie chili for everyone to eat at the party, along with some other yummy dishes people had made.  My favorites were the corn pancakes with honey butter.  Delicious, and an interesting change from corn bread with chili.  Some patient soupswapper had fried up dozens of them, and they were still warm.

Now, Farmer Marty generally is not a big party goer.  In fact, I would go so far as to say, he’s anti-party.  In fact, I go to a lot of parties by myself.  But he was so sure that his “Rainbow Trowder” was the best soup in town, that it only took a tiny amount of convincing to get him to accompany me to the Soup Swap.  We showed up and lined our soup up with all the other soups.

Here’s how the swap worked.  Everybody picked a number.  Then, by number each person got to pick one soup.  In the second round, we picked three more, and in the last round, 2 more.  There were a lot more than 6 participants, I think there were 14, so everybody didn’t get every kind.  Some of the more popular soups were Sauerkraut Soup (our first pick), Cilantro Dumpling Soup, Caldo Verde, and White Bean, Garlic, and Goat Cheese (we missed out on these), Chicken, Black Bean and Cilantro, Coconut Chicken, and Creamy Carrot (we’ll be trying these!).

Marty was disappointed that the Rainbow Trowder was not the first soup to disappear.  Actually, I think quite a few of the participants may have been vegetarians, as they made a point of telling us that their soups were.  But we thought our soup was so spectacular!  Do people not like fish as much as we do?  Were they unsure about the homegrown Jerusalem Artichokes?  We don’t know.  However, as I pointed out, there was no actual tasting of soups involved…(and, it’s not really a contest).  Here’s the recipe to try for yourself.

— Katie