Baby, it's cold outside

Happy Inauguration Day! If you're on the East coast watching the speeches, either outside on the mall or on TV, well then you're probably pretty cold. And what's good when you're cold? That's right, a big bowl of soup.

This recipe was given to me by my Aunt Terry, back around the time I first moved to New York. For many years, this was one of the only things I could make (this, chocolate chip cookies and smoked salmon pasta....that was pretty much it). I've made some minor adjustments to the recipe, but it pretty much stands the same. It's a wonderful filling delicious soup.

Tortilla Soup!

2 onions
2 peppers
1 pkg chicken breast
1 qt chicken stock
1 qt beef stock
1 28 oz can tomatoes (I use the whole ones and then blitz them in the food processor or just smoosh them with my hands, depending on my mood)
Lawry's seasoning salt
chili powder
basil (fresh or dried)

sour cream, chips, shredded cheese, avocado and lime as garnish

1. Dice your onions and pepper. Feel guilty about buying pepper at all in the winter time, as they were grown in Israel. Think that you are a really bad local food enthusiast. But see how pretty the peppers are?


Sigh. You could use any color pepper in the soup. I picked these today because they were pretty.

2. Get a really big pot. Put both the stocks in the pot, along with the onions and peppers. Simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.


3. Chop your chicken into bite size pieces. Add it to the pot, along with the tomatoes (if it wasn't winter, you could add fresh tomatoes and that would be excellent. But it's January, so....yeah). Add the spices to your taste. If you like it spicy, add more chili powder, or even some red pepper flakes. I added a few dried chilies instead of any powders, since I had some on hand. Add lots of Lawry's! It may seem low-rent, but it's awesome.


4. Simmer for a while longer, at least until the chicken is cooked through, but longer is better. The longer it cooks, the more the flavors meld together and the better it gets. This soup is ridiculously good the next day.

5. Ladle some in a big bowl and add all the toppings (you can use low fat sour cream if you're all health conscious, or low fat cheese, etc, but you really want to get a little bit of everything in the bowl). Meredith had the brilliant idea of adding a squeeze of lime. That was a nice touch.


Eat! You're going to want seconds. And thirds. I think I ended up having four or five servings of this over two or three days....Zack only got two. Whoops.