Isn't Chowder Soup?

I tried a new recipe from my slow cooker book; Six Ingredients or Less Slow Cooker.  This recipe is Potato Chowder on page 32.  The recipes calls for:
6 cups potatoes peeled and cubed (small)
1 cup chopped onion
2 cans Italian style diced tomatoes
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
salt and pepper to taste

Again I have a hard time following the recipe.  I just don't measure things!  But I stayed very close:
6 potatoes cubed; I never peel my potatoes
1 onion chopped
2 cans diced tomotoes with chilis; only because I could not find the italian on this particular day
2 cans corn; I never use frozen vegetables because they squeak when I eat them
salt and pepper

I poured in the tomatoes, onion and corn, salt and peppered.  I then started cutting my potatoes.  When I had a layer across the top of the other ingredients in my slow cooker I salt and peppered again because my family likes a lot of seasoning.  I finished cutting the potatoes and again salt and peppered.  I then took a wooden spoon and mixed it all up getting the seasoning throughout all my ingredients.

So I really did not deviate from the recipe that much.  However, I did have some finely chopped carrots that I threw in just because they needed to be used.  :-)

The recipe calls for cooking on lovw 10 -12 hours.  I cooked on high for 5 hours.  It smelled wonderful!

Yet again disappointment set in as we started to 'dive' into lunch.  First it didn't look like chowder.  I always thought of chowder as soup so I was expecting a soup like consistency.  Second no flavor.  Even with all the salt and pepper I used...NO flavor.  You could taste the chilis but that was it.

So what did I do....turned the slow cooker back on low.  I added 2 cups of beef broth, a small can of tomato sauce and 2 tablespoons of itailan seasoning.  Well....I added these ingredients over the next couple of hours trying to find the flavor that made my tastebuds tingle and in the end I was quite please with my potato chowder.  The only ingredient I am really not sure of the exact amount used is the italian seasoning so go slow and taste along the way.

Because this chowder had a tomato base (kind of) I'm thinking that it was supposed to be similar to a manhatten style chowder.  The book also has another potato chowder recipe that is cream based so guess what dinner is tomorrow?   Yep yep yep!  We are going to compare the two chowders.

Eat up and stay tuned!