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Saturday, June 7, 2014

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Before I begin, I'd like to make a couple promises.  1. This recipe is not complicated, nor time-consuming.  The most lengthy part is all the chopping, and I guarantee that you cut vegetables faster than I do.  You know that one crazy person who gets pulled over for driving too slow on the interstate?  That's me in the realm of vegetable-chopping.  Despite this, I still managed to do everything in under an hour (this is with all the times I had to stop and cater to Ella taken out of the equation).  2. I promise to give you no exact measurements.  I think I followed a recipe for this long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away... but now I just wing it, especially when it comes to the seasoning.  3. It's pretty good.  I'm not gonna go all infomercial on you and say it's "life-changing," but it's fairly healthy and very tasty.  A win-win, in my book.
 
The first step is chopping up the veggies -- one onion, followed by red, green, orange, and yellow bell peppers.  Next, a couple stalks of celery, some carrots, and jalapeno.  After I finished these, I started prepping some of the toppings: cilantro and green onion. 
I then melted some butter in my soup pot, along with a ton of minced garlic (not trying to impress anyone -- one of the benefits of being already married).  After this was melted, I added in all the vegetables I had chopped, giving it a stir every now and then to ensure that it all cooked evenly.  Then I began to prepare the chicken.  Water, salt, bay leaves, and two chicken breasts into a pot.  Boiled it for about twenty-five minutes.  Drained.  Pulled chicken apart. 
After the veggies were cooked through and the chicken was done, I added two containers of chicken broth to the pot (I usually prefer the low-sodium kind, but this was what I had on hand last night), along with the can of diced tomatoes, corn, black beans, and the finished chicken.
 
Then, I began to season (the most fun part).  Below are the seasonings I used, heavy on the taco seasoning, cumin, and crushed red pepper.  Not a lot of salt needed. 

The final product is below, topped with tortilla chip strips, cilantro, green onion, cheese, and lime juice. 
 

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