"Soup"er dilemma

It's no secret that I love to cook.  Notice I said cook, not bake.  Although, the girl and I made a chocolate cake from scratch today which was fun and amazingly yummy!  So baking may be on my resume soon.  I have high standards to consider someone a Cook or Baker.  In my mind, you not only need to be able to replicate a recipe, but you need to be able to create your own creations without a recipe.  I can basically pull this off as a cook, but not a baker.  I know what flavors and foods go together to create a great meal.  Baking a cake or cookies without a recipe... I just don't seem to have that knack, yet. 

One of my favorite things to make is homemade soup.  I love soup.  Love it soooo much that I could eat it daily.   I can tell in a restaurant if it's made from scratch or a can has been opened.  And to me if you are serving canned soup in a restaurant then, "why bother?"  I have a few favorite soups I make, and really they take no more effort than it does to drive to the closest diner and order food.

Am I always successful?  No.  Take tonight, I tried to create chicken corn chowder using a recipe from a friend.  I changed it up to make it in the crockpot. And it is good, but not too appealing to the eye. And you say, as long as it's tasty, who cares?  Yeah, to me it looks like vomit, and has a strange texture.  I'd say like vomit, too, but I have never stopped to contemplate the texture of vomit.   I can't eat more than a spoonful.  The girl liked it. She ate 2 bowls and Hubby had a bowl, too..

I made a few key mistakes.  When using chicken in a soup, you should always cook it separately.  Because when you don't, the longer you cook it in liquid the more likely you are to get this cottage cheesy chicken residue.  So I thought I would fix that by running it through the food processor.  Epic mistake!  Thus, the result...

So, why the big deal?  A good friend of ours is having a soup party in a few weeks.  I want to impress this friend because he is like a culinary expert.  He is always bringing amazing food to gatherings.  I'm indecisive as to what soup to make, but I can tell you which soup I will NOT bring!  Hubby says,  "You got to have bad ones every once in a while to appreciate the good ones."  Although, he says that in reference to puns, which to me there are very few good ones of those. (Sorry, Dad!) 
 I kind of want to try something new... just looking for the courage to take the leap.   Because I found this one recipe that could be phenomenal..... or not!