Quick Shrimp and Corn Soup

Source: Cooking Light, April 2000


Cooking spray
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
3/4 cup (6 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
2 cups fat-free milk
1 (15-ounce) can cream-style corn
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can condensed reduced-fat, reduced-sodium cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 (10-ounce) can diced tomatoes and green chiles, undrained
1 1/4 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 teaspoons sliced green onions

Heat a Dutch oven or large saucepan coated with cooking spray over medium-high. Add onion, bell pepper, and garlic, and sauté 5 minutes. Stir in cream cheese; reduce heat, and cook until cheese is melted. Add milk, corn, soup, and tomatoes; cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Bring milk mixture to a boil. Add shrimp; cook 5 minutes or until shrimp are done. Remove from heat. Sprinkle each serving with green onions. Yield: 8 servings (serving size: 1 cup soup and 1/2 teaspoon green onions)

NUTRITION PER SERVINGCALORIES 228(29% from fat); FAT 7.4g (sat 3.8g,mono 1.9g,poly 1.1g); PROTEIN 18.8g; CHOLESTEROL 118mg; CALCIUM 176mg; SODIUM 663mg; FIBER 1.5g; IRON 2.4mg; CARBOHYDRATE 20.8g

Cooking Light, APRIL 2000

My notes: This recipe has to things I generally consider no-nos - creamed condensed soup and cream-style corn, but I'm giving it a whirl anyway. The condensed soup is just something I don't think of as being all that healthy, but I know they can sure taste good!

Overall, this soup was pretty tasty but not as good as I had hoped. I'm not sure if this will be a repeater, but if I do make it again, there will be some changes.

As I began making this soup, I started to think, "Now why did I think this sounded so good?". It suddenly dawned on me that out of tomatoes, chilies, creamed corn and cream of mushroom soup, one of them just didn't belong - the mushroom soup. The mushroom soup, however, wasn't the problem. It was the cream-style corn that I didn't like - it smelled funny to me and I thought it came through too much in the soup. I would have much preferred regular corn - either canned or frozen. I guess cream-style corn just isn't my thing.

The only other problem was that it was a little too spicy. Fine for adults, but a little spicy for my crowd. To cut down the heat, I would use regular diced tomatoes and perhaps add canned chilies along with a little cayenne so that I could have better control over the spiciness. I used Rotel - I don't remember other brands being quite this spicy, but I don't use these very often.