Chicken Tortilla Soup-- In Honor of Mom

 

We're posting this one this weekend because it's Mother's Day and this is Nanny's (Todd's mom) FAVORITE!! Sorry Nanny! We're making this Chicken Tortilla soup without you. Blame it on the virus! 





We miss you! When do grandparents reopen??!






Chicken tortilla soup has been a many years long, trial and error recipe. Eventually, Todd became inspired by Blue Zones and he wanted to find a way to make beans a star of this recipe. That's how the magic happened. 

It can be something you make in the winter as the perfect cozy warm thing, but it has such a great medley of flavors that it works well in summer as well! 

Let's get started! 

Ingredients:

• 3 strips Bacon, cut into small squares
• 1 T. oil, canola or olive, or Bacon fat
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 red pepper diced
• 1 yellow pepper diced
• 1 c. sweet corn
• 10 oz. can of diced tomatoes with green chilies (Rotel)
• 15 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes 
• 1-1/2 t chili powder
• 1-1/2 t cumin
• 1 t oregano
• 1/2 t granulated garlic
• 1/2 t salt
• 1-1/2 lbs finger pulled chicken breast meat, precooked
• 4 c. chicken stock
• 1 T. chicken base
• 3 oz. (half of a 6 oz can) tomato paste
• 15 oz. can of black beans
• 15 oz. can pinto beans
• 3 T. corn meal
• Tortilla chips (a base layer for each bowl)
• Shredded cheddar (a sprinkling for each bowl)
• 1 avocado, diced
• Cilantro, chopped, to garnish
• Sour cream (a dollop for each bowl)
• Wedges of lime 

Instructions:

Heat up the oil in the Dutch Oven (DO). Cook the Bacon (we capitalize Bacon because it's Bacon) until crispy.

Remove the bacon from the DO and set it aside in a bowl to be used as a garnish at the end. 

Too bad for this guy...we're smarter this time. 

Add the onions into the DO and carmelize (until softened), stir deglazing the DO in the process.

Add in the peppers and cook until softened. Next, go in the can of tomatoes and chilies (juices and all) and the sweet corn. Now pour over the spices (chili powder, cumin, oregano, garlic and salt) and stir together.  

Stir in the chicken. 

Add in chicken stock, chicken base and tomato paste. Bring it all to a simmer.   

  

Drain and rinse the beans--The stars of the show. Add them in and bring it back to a simmer.

Sprinkle corn meal in. Then, bring to a simmer for at least 25 minutes to melt all the flavors together. 

Time to prepare your serving bowls. Take a small handful of tortilla chips, crush them and layer them across the bottom of the bowl. Grate cheddar cheese over the chips. This is the hidden secret that your diners won't even realize makes it so, so good! Here's steps 1, 2 and 3: 

Get your lime, cilantro, avocado, sour cream and bacon ready. 

And Todd will help you bring all the magic together!

This one can't be beat. 

And we'd both just like to say how very blessed we are to have mothers that love and serve and care for us and our kiddos so much. We are counting our blessings and feeling rich this weekend. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. It's the hardest, most full time, most fulfilling hat a woman can wear and we are so, so grateful for the investment our mamas have made in us and our family!

 

Poblano Pork Green Chili

Some of you will be familiar with Colorado green chili. Well this is not that! (There are some similarities though). We're not in Colorado. We add beans whenever possible (read about Blue Zones!) and we're using poblano peppers. And also, we add on of our favorite secret ingredients. More on that later.  

Get that dutch oven (DO) ready!! This should surprise no one anymore...

Ingredients

3-4 lbs pork shoulder, in 1/2" cubes
5-6 poblano peppers
2 jalapeno peppers
1 15 oz can fire-roasted tomatoes
1/2 c. water
4 c. chicken stock
2 onions diced
1 t. cumin
1/2 t. salt
2 15 oz cans pinto beans, rinsed and drained
3 T. minced garlic, or 8 cloves minced
1/4 c. flour
Bacon fat
1 lime
Sour cream to top
Cilantro

Instructions

Pour the water into the DO, then the pork and salt. Cook with the lid on for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.







Time to roast the poblanos and jalapenos. Remove the seeds and halve them. Cover a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray. 

Spread the poblano and jalapeno halves around the baking sheet (option to sprinkle oil, salt and pepper over them if you like) and place in the oven on broil (not preheated) for about 15 minutes until the skins are blackened. Yes, we're going to burn them!






Stay in a hurry and dice up your 2 onions. 










Turn the heat on the DO to medium-high, take off the lid and cook off all of the water from the pork while stirring it. This should take about another 20 minutes. 

When the peppers are nice and blackened, remove them 
from the oven. 

Spoon them into a glass bowl and seal with plastic wrap to allow them to finish cooking themselves down. The skins will detach themselves. It will take about 10 minutes.

Turn the oven to 325 degrees F. 

Dutch oven evaporation update....It's still going. You may feel like the water will never cook off. But it will! Don't pour it off. You need all the pork juice! Cook for about 5 minutes after the water is gone to get some browning on the meat. 

You know you're good when there's a nice fawn on the bottom of the dutch oven. We'll deglaze next with the onions and Bacon fat. (If you're new here...you should know we always capitalize Bacon...because. Duh. It's Bacon!)








Spoon the pork out of the dutch oven and then add 1 T of Bacon fat to the DO. (canola oil if you don't have Bacon fat). And add in the onions and let them sweat on medium heat until caramelized. 

This process also deglazes the pan so we can make good use of those delicious pork bit that are coating the DO.

Remove the the peppers from the bowl and peel away all the skins. Set the jalapenos aside for now.









Give the poblanos a rough cut and put them with the tomatoes into a food processor. 









And call in your mini chef to blitz (pulsing not holding) them until well mixed, not pureed. You don't want to lose those chunks completely!

Add in the garlic and cumin to the DO and cook for about 1 minute, until your house smells delicious.

Fold in the flour for about a minute, then pour over your chicken stock stirring intermittently. Bring almost to a boil. 







Then add in the processed vegetables and pork. Fold together. Bring to a simmer, cover and put in the oven for about an hour.

Toward the end of the hour while the DO is in the oven, prepare the rest of the ingredients. Rinse and drain the beans. Mince the jalapenos, slice the lime and chop the cilantro.

Take the DO out of the oven and add the beans. Replace the lid and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Then follow along here to finish and dish up! 

We make this one when we feel like we want something comforting to warm us from the inside but is outside the box. It's a unique soup that hits all sorts of flavor notes and gives that warmth with an exciting spicy hit. We dare you not to have seconds...nevermind. Go for it!