Southwestern Corn Chowder

It's rather surprising how much really great produce we still have coming in from the garden and Farmer's market. Giant piles of tomatoes sit ripening on my counter top, and peppers keep sprouting up on the plants in our raised bed. Scott brought home a giant bag of sweet corn this weekend and decided to combine some of our own garden vegetables to make this Southwestern style chowder. Starting with a few slices of leftover bacon, he diced them up and rendered the fat from them in a large dutch oven.  He removed the bacon bits and sauteed some sweet red onions in the bacon drippings.  Then he diced up three sweet red peppers, and one anaheim chile with seeds and pith removed, and added them to the onions in the pot, along with corn off the cob from 5-6 medium sized cobs. He sprinkled a little flour over the sauteed vegetables to create a roux, and mixed them until they were lightly coated. He then covered the vegetables with chicken stock and simmered the soup for about 20 minutes until the corn was tender.  While the soup was cooking, he blanched 3-4 medium tomatoes and removed the skin and seeds,  mashing them lightly before adding them into the sauteed vegetables mixture.   Finally, Scott chopped  up about 1/2 cup of fresh de-stemmed cilantro and added it to the soup just before turning off the heat.  Prior to serving this zesty Fall soup, mix in a little light cream or half and half and season to taste with fresh cracked pepper and salt. Great with a warm ciabatta roll and a mixed greens salad! Delicioso!