Recipe of the Week: Mexican Soup

Recently my friend Beverly posted this recipe on her blog. We've had a lot of rainy, cooler days here in the past few weeks so I thought soup sounded good. Let me tell you this is some of the best soup I've ever tasted. It is fabulous! Kyle, who is normally not a soup kinda guy just loved this soup and gobbled up two bowls of it at dinner the other night. This is a quick fix meal and the results are a mild, mexican spiced thick soup that reminds me a lot of a "chicken tortilla soup". Also, I tweaked Beverly's original recipe which called for a lot of 1/2 and 1/2. I lightened up the calorie content considerably by substituting a lot of the 1/2 and 1/2 with 1% milk. The orignial recipe also called for creamed corn. I substituted with a can of Green Giant niblets.

Heres what you will need:

*3 cloves garlic, minced

*1 onion, chopped

3 T flour

3 14 oz. cans chicken broth OR 14 oz. boxed chicken broth or stock

1 cup 1/2 and 1/2

3 cups 1 % milk

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 cup salsa (I swear by Pace Picante Sauce: mild)

1 can corn (drained)

6 boneless chicken breasts, cooked

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 pkg. dry Lawry's fajita or taco seasoning

3 tbsp cilantro

tortilla chips

shredded cheese

I love these products from Trader Joes. In the freezer section look for Dorot Crushed Garlic. Each little frozen "cube" is exactly 1 clove of crushed, fresh garlic. I like it better than buying fresh garlic and chopping it or pressing it. It is easier and your fingers stay smelling fresh as you just pop it out, instead of handling raw garlic. I also love the diced frozen onion. I use 1 cup of diced onion in replacement of chopping up an onion and the tears are a thing of the past!

(I like to pre-measure and chop everything before I begin...I halved the recipe for our small family, however we did not have much left over. In the future I will make the full recipe )

The first step is to cook your chicken. I like to poach my chicken breasts in boiling water for 20 minutes. I then remove the breasts from the boiing water, let cool a little then chop up into very small cubes. Next,

in a large stock pot or dutch oven, saute the onion and garlic in butter. Add flour and stir well for one minute. While stirring, slowly add broth, half and half and milk. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Add remaining ingrediants (except chips and cheese) and heat through on a low bubbling simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve the soup with crumbled chips and cheese. The chips will soften as you eat the soup and they add the most wonderful texture. Serve with warm corn bread muffins or with a chunk of Trader Joe's Jalapeno Corn Bread. (another favorite from my favorite grocery store!)

Enjoy!!