cream of rainy day soup ala rachel

yesterday was beautiful. i worked all day long (but no one came in, so i got caught up on a few of my favorite shows...). it was one of those overcast sprinkly kind of days, so the air smelled so nice, and it wasn't even too cold. by the time i got off work, it had actually really started to rain instead of mist, so i decided that it would be a good night for soup making. so here it is, the step-by-step process (i wouldn't call it a recipe, it's sooo much more) for cream of rainy day soup:

1. decide to make soup and then spend about an hour looking through recipes in your little box and online at http://allrecipes.com
2. after reading a whole bunch of corn chowder recipes, pick and choose ingredients from several and make a grocery list
3. spend way too long at the store getting ingredients and a few other essentials
4. get home, wash the small skillet and the big soup pot
5. in skillet, cook half a package of bacon to the damn near burned stage (i like it uber crispy) and place the cooked pieces into the soup pot
6. in bacon drippings, saute half of a large onion (diced)
7. add to the onion two diced celery stalks
8. when veggies are tender, spoon most of them into the soup pot with the bacon.
9. throw a big package of fresh sliced mushrooms into the rest of the drippings and the few onions that you couldn't get out of the pan with the spatula
10. when the mushrooms are tender and have soaked up all of the rest of the drippings, dump them into the soup pot as well.
11. into the pot, add bag of frozen corn from your grandmother's garden (about 2-3cups), three medium potatoes (cubed), 4 cups of water and enough chicken bullion for it.
12. boil until the taters are tender, then add a splash of heavy whipping cream (probably about 1/2 cup), and copious amounts of shredded sharp cheddar cheese (think half of a bag or more people... no such thing as too much cheese)
13. let the soup cook for about another 10 ish minutes until all the cheese is melted in and everything thickens up a bit
14. eat. freeze the leftovers in individual ziploc bowls for lunch or dinner at work.

one thing that i would suggest in retrospect would be to take the cooked potatoes out of the pot and blend them up for a bit, so that you don't have huge chunks of taters. also, eat with biscuits. never forget the biscuits. :)