Soups On: Part III, A Low-Fat Chowder!?!?

What? How? No way!?!?!?!
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Yup, that's right a low-fat chowder creation!
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The newest issue of Food & Wine plasters on the cover 40 Healthy Recipes! As I do with each issue, I flipped through several times before committing to a recipe. What caught my eye this time around was a Shrimp and Smoked Oyster Chowder.
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Lately I have been craving and consuming at least 1 tin of smoked clams on the weekends. I know many may think this is gross and yes, they are an acquired taste...but give them a try! For me, I like to eat mine straight up on Carr crackers. [This was actually something Hubs introduced me to many moons ago before we were married.] Until recent, it has never occurred to me to actually cook with them though.
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With that said, my motivations for trying this recipe were:
1) Chowder is a good thing, especially in the winter.
2) It was a low-fat recipe and the tricks they used had me curious.
3) Smoked oysters in soup?!? Now that's worth trying.
4) The picture in F&W made this look so tasty!
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Clam juice.

I think we've used it a couple times when boiling up some shellfish, but never for anything else.

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Time to break out the booze!

If you are anything like me, this bottle of Sherry has been used maybe twice and found a place to sit and collect dust, way in the back of our cupboards.

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The recipe calls for you to make your own shrimp stock.

It uses water, clam juice, sherry, shrimp shells, garlic, crushed red pepper and bay leaves. Of course knowing me, I did up (2x +) the garlic and red pepper amounts...what can I say, I love a good kick from my food!

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The smoked oysters...not so appetizing by appearance.

I actually thought about tossing the can and replacing with smoked clams, which do not look anything like this.

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Bowl on the left - chopped smoked oysters.

Bowl on the right - chopped onion, fennel, green pepper, celery and garlic.
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The oysters again.

At this point I am really fighting the urge to toss them and replace with smoked clams...but do stay the course of the original recipe.
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1" cubes of cod and quartered shrimp make up the meats.
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My favorite part...the cook down!
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Once complete, the broth was added back to the pan along with some diced potatoes and a can of diced tomatoes. As soon as the potatoes became tender, the fish/shrimp were added and cooked until done.
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Some fresh parsley and bread for my finishing touches.
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At the end of the cooking process 1 cup of low-fat buttermilk was stirred in.

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There you have it...a low-fat chowder!
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This was a wonderful soup and very easy to make.

The cod was just perfect in texture and flavor (the best fish we've had at home yet!).

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I really loved their tricks for keeping this so tasty.

The low-fat substitutions really worked!

The soup called for smoked oysters to replace the use of bacon, and buttermilk for the cream.

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We did have enough leftover to enjoy the next day. I always get a little nervous about eating fish the day after and was afraid this soup would wind up tasting fishy....but nope, it was delicious and perhaps even a bit better than our first taste the night before.