Santa Fe Tortilla Soup

Santa Fe Tortilla Soup I’m going to start by preheating a big soup pot to build my terrific tortilla soup in and I'm also going to preheat my grill pan because I’m going to grill up my veggies for this soup, so the have a lots of flavor. I'm just going to start husking my corn here. Now if corn in the cob is out of season, go ahead and use frozen corn for this soup but to get some of that grilled flavor in there, maybe you might want to think about using grilled chicken breast. Just put the chicken breast on, then chunk it up, and add it to your soup. We’re going to drizzle it up with EVOO so it doesn’t stick to the grill. Season it up with some salt and pepper and also take my pepper down there. Speaking of peppers, I got a nice, bright, red, sweet bell pepper for this. You could just use any color you like though, all my favorite veggies smelling it up but I like to pick favorites. I do love them all. But there’s so much great color in vegetables going on and all the Santa Fe cooking. I was so happy to eat there. I couldn’t write down notes fast enough. I really do bring home taste of every place I go on the planet because the food then becomes you know, a scrapbook of all my travels for me. I could feel like I’m visiting Santa Fe again in as quick as I can go to the grocery store and whipped up a thirty minute meal. One more pepper on my pepper, let’s get this on the grill. But the skin side down so they char up nice for you, get you corn on there. Roll it around in the oil here so it’s evenly coated, excellent. Okay let’s get our chicken going on. I’m going to put some oil in the bottom of my pot so I’ve got a place to put my chicken once I get it chopped. I’m using tenders today but you could certainly use chicken breast if you have those on hand. If you prefer dark meat you could look for the boneless, skinless thighs. I like the tenders because of their size. It requires very little chopping to get the chicken into the pot, and I’m all about getting any thing done fast. The chicken tenderloin is from the back of the chicken breast. It’s all white meat and I just cut it into kind of large bite-size pieces, bite size for me in my mouth, that’s for sure. When this is done you're going to know that it’s good for you because it is going to have so many beautiful colors. It is just going to look like it’s healthy. Get the chicken into the pot, let that start working. Don’t mess with the chicken when you first put it in there otherwise you’ll tear the meat. Now, why did the chicken cross the road? I was playing with that, tied up for this chicken Tortilla Soup. It’s because there’s so much flavor on this dish. Anybody will cross the road for it. I’m going to use a little cumin here which is not spicy but it is very smoky tasting, excellent, excellent in this dish. And I’m going to use a little poultry seasoning because after all this is poultry. Now if you don’t have poultry seasoning, you could use some ground thyme or ground sage that would be fine, a little sprinkle of that. I always have poultry seasoning because every Thanksgiving, I get paranoid if I don’t have poultry seasoning, so I buy more poultry seasoning. So pepper goes in next of course, smelling good, oh my corn is turning up already. So I’m going to give those veggies a quick turn. Look at that, it’s already starting to brown up there and get delicious. Those little brown bits are lots in great flavor. Just keep on eye on that, spin that around, oh look at those peppers. Hey, just give it a turn every a couple minutes. Now, I’m going to get going on some onions and garlic because “Hey, what is my cooking without onion, and garlic right?” Now you can go easy or heavy on the garlic, if you like. I’m going to crack a quite a bit of it because I love it. I’m just going to chop up my zucchini now. I’ve also got some chipotle and adobo. That’s going to go in a minute but I just want to give myself some room to work here so I'm going to get into my veggies into the pot. Half of my vegetables I should say because the other half of my vegetables, my corn and my pepper they’re grilling up down there. So they have a nice char taste to add onto the soup. Stir this down into the bottom of the pot there so the veggies get some action down there and I’m going to get my chipotles in there. Now, chipotle has got a really nice smoky flavor that will marry up lovely to that cumin that we put in here because cumins are very smoky is spice. Chipotles are going to add heat though because there are jalapenos. There are jalapeno peppers that had been smoked and then they canned them with herbs and spices and vinegar. They’re awesome but a little goes a long way here. You want to be careful with how much you use. You might want to start with on because you could always add more heat, but you can’t take it out. I know I like mine good and spicy and I make this all the time so I’m just going to go ahead and put two in. I’m going to go ahead and get my other vegetables off the grill here so they cool enough for me to handle. That red pepper looks great. The skin is all nice and charred up. My corn looks fantastic, super sweet. Now it is all charred too. My soup is smelling ready for the liquid to get in there. Here’s my can opener. I’m going to start with my tomato sauce. The tomato sauce is so sweet, just add a bit, one cup of that, one small can into the back we go. The stewed tomatoes is the great trick because it’s going to give an all day taste like they cooked all day because the tomatoes were already stewed with some veggies. And I'm also going to give it even more all they taste by using some chicken stock, in go our stewed tomatoes. We’ll break those up a little as we work the soup and we’re going to get three cups of this chicken stock into the pot. Now, I’ve got my soup boiling away there. I’m going to get in my grilled veggies. They are cool enough to handle now. My corn on the cob, I’m just going to cut right off the cob, get that in there. Now, you could certainly use frozen corn for these, no big deal. You’d want at least two cups or one box. Me, I love corn on the cob so if it’s available the whole season even it’s a little earlier, a little late I always look for the fresh for this. You could not get the corn cob away from me when I was a kid. I used to literally suck on the corn cob, I know that’s doesn’t sound great but it was a good idea when I was a kid. I also got a beautiful red pepper there, nice and sweet. These are all the flavors I kept eating in meal after meal when I was down on Santa Fe. Café Pascual and the Coyote Café and the Cantina, every thing is so beautiful there. Now, I’m going to add the tortillas. Now on Santa Fe they literally start by making the tortillas. They make flower or corn flap tortillas then they cut them into strips and fry them up, and then they mix them into the soup. Me, I’m just buying some store bought chips, take a little help where you can get it is what I say, and I’m going to stir it in. You break them up as you fold it down in there. Oh men, plus it allows you to play with the flavors a little like these are blue corn, and sesame tortillas. Now if you’re cooking for yourself and you're making a big pot of soup like this as I always do for my self you would hold off. I’m putting the tortillas in the soup. Put them into the dish instead, so that they don’t get too saggy with your leftovers. Now I’m going to tap it, oh I’ve got super toppings here today. I’ve got some shredded cheddar cheese. I’ve got a few sprigs of cilantro left from my cilantro salad dressing. I’ve got some chopped, red onion that I left raw here. I’ve got some nice avocado, buttery, delicious avocado. Now I put a little lime juice on that to help retard the oxidation process of the avocado and that sounds like science class, to keep it green and pretty as long as possible. And I’ve got a little dab of sour cream to cool it down.