Tortilla soup and its yummy friends to garnish!

Hello friends! It's been too long. I've been so buried since my company was acquired I can't tell what day of the week it is anymore! Needless to say, I've been shirking my responsibilities with posting. That said, if there's one thing that can pull me out of being buried with work, it's Cinco de Mayo!

It's not a secret that I love all things Mexican; the country, the people, the food, the beaches, etc. I've tried a million different versions of one of my most favorite Mexica Soups but, decided to share a new version for you on the big day! In order to ensure you got the very best version I also visited my favorite Mexican Grocery Store in Red Bank, NJ. I'm not sure what I love most about it but, I'm sure I love that everyone is speaking Spanish.

My cart.... yes, there's more in there than just the ingredients for this soup! Sneak preview of more to come for Cinco de Mayo!

The fun part is how easy this is. You can play with the recipe as much as you'd like. I threw all the ingredients (except the chicken broth) into my cast iron skillet whole, then cut them up one after the other and dumped them into a blender, yup - beyond easy!

Ingredients include

1 onion sliced into 3 big slices
4-5 garlic cloves
3-4 large plum tomatoes
4 cups of low sodium fat free chicken broth
1 large dried chili pepper
1 small (hot) spicy pepper
8 small corn tortillas (4 & 4)
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
2 tablespoons of corn starch
1 tablespoon of cold water
One avocado
A bunch of cilantro
Queso fresco
Lime

Fill a saucepan with the chicken broth and turn on the heat on the lowest setting just to warm it up, not to get it hot. In the other pan, the cast iron skillet toss in the garlic, plum tomatoes, the peppers, onion slices and the peppers! Once they're all a little brown take them out and put them aside. once at a time, up to 4, pop those beautiful corn tortillas into the pan, it's dry still so, let them stay in there cozy for say 1 minute on each side. When those 4 are toasty, slide up the tomatoes and toss them back in the pan.

Next step is super easy. First cut the tops off the peppers and dump out the seeds, sliced them up into a few pieces. Then, take everything else you just cooked, including the tortillas and throw them into your blender with say, 2 cups of chicken both (Note! the chicken broth shouldn't be hot or it may explode when you cover it and blend it - make sure - if it's steaming, do not blend it until it cools) Blend everything until smooth and add in your spices; cumin, garlic powder, salt pepper and pour it back into the chicken broth .

Turn heat up to medium high. In a little bowl mix your corn starch and water, pour slowly into the warmed up soup and watch while it thickens.

While it warms slice up your garnishes and get ready to eat a yummy treat! Slice the avocado, sprinkle with lime juice, cut off about a 1/2 cup of Queso fresco and crumble it up, as much cilantro as you like and the tortilla strips!

The strips.... slice up the 4 remaining tortillas into strips. In a shallow frying pan you'll need to put canola oil in about 1/4 deep. When you drop the strips in, they'll fry fast so, stay over them with your tongs. As they brown, take them out and let them dry on a paper towel - sprinkle with salt.

As you pour the soup into bowls and garnish with this yumminess ( fresco, tortillas, avocado and cilantro ) get ready to love this soup!

Looks like a lot but, it's really easy and very fast. Don't shy away! I know you'll love this.

Enjoy, xo Measure