Recipe: Chicken Tortilla Soup

Yesterday morning, I woke up craving chicken tortilla soup. I'd never made it before, but I'd been thinking about it for a while.

I looked around at a few recipes and settled on one that seemed easy and had pictures that looked good. Which, if you read my blog regularly, is how I always make my best decisions.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup

Adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients

1 lb shredded chicken

1 (15 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes, mashed and chopped

1 (10 oz) can enchilada sauce

3/4 large onion, chopped

1 (4 oz) can chopped green chile peppers

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 cans chicken broth

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 bay leaves

1 (10 oz) package frozen corn

1 tbsp chopped cilantro

7 corn tortillas

vegetable oil

Directions

1. Place all ingredients, from chicken to cilantro, in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hrs. It doesn't get much easier than that.

2. To make tortilla crisps: slice tortillas into strips. Fry in oil. Sprinkle with salt. Warning: these little guys can go from floppy to charred in no time, so make sure to keep an eye on them.

3. Serve with lime wedges, chopped avocado, cilantro, sour cream, cotija cheese, or whatever else strikes your fancy. 

This recipe gets a thumbs up from me, Eric, and my mom. And Mom usually has no problem telling me when my recipes suck. The only thing I'd try next time is to either use low-sodium broth or omit the salt. The soup was already plenty savory and I think the salt could be removed without affecting the overall flavor.

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Horchata and Ungrateful Jerks.

While enjoying some of the finer things in life (tacos and horchata), I was reminded of a day long, long ago when I shared some Mexican treasures with my classmates.

I must have been around eight or nine years old at the time. Our class was having a potluck party- maybe for Christmas or something- and all of the students were encouraged to bring one or two items of their choice for the lunch buffet. I knew immediately what I wanted to bring because these items were super fucking delicious and how could anybody NOT like them and I knew all of my classmates were going to swarm my treats and I would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Best Buffet Item in Mrs. Stallone's 3rd Grade Class.

Excitedly, I told my mom what I wanted.

"BUNUELOS AND HORCHATA!!!!!!"

For those of you who did not grow up in a town that's basically the equivalent of Little Mexico, bunuelos are lightly fried flour tortillas, topped with cinnamon and sugar. 

And horchata is only the best fucking drink on the planet unless you're weird and don't like the best things ever. It's a sweet beverage that looks like 2% milk, but it's actually rice milk with cinnamon and sugar. (I'm beginning to notice a pattern here.) It's similar to those fancypants rice milk drinks you buy at rich people stores, only about a million times better.

I remember stopping at Taco de Mexico on our way to school the morning of the big party. I remember seeing my mom lug two gallons of heaven-juice back to the car. I was so excited. I mean, I WAS SO EXCITED. Just like, Ralphie from A Christmas Story, when he's sure his essay is so great, it will cure blindness. (Or whatever.)

Have I built up the bunuelos-horchata combo enough for you??

Can you tell where I'm going with this?

Of course, fucking NOBODY wanted my treats. 

Those pre-tween jerks didn't even know a good thing when it was placed right in front of their picky little faces. And you'd think with a class full of children who had probably all had these items before, they would have been clawing each other's faces off to get seconds. Jerks. Double jerks.

To this day, I still can't believe my south-of-the-border delicacies went unappreciated.

Also, I still LOVE horchata.

Disclaimer: If you have never tried horchata, do NOT buy that crap at the grocery store. Trust me. Go to a legit Mexican restaurant for it. The more "hole-in-the-wall," the better. But if the horchata has cantaloupe and walnuts in it, turn back- you've gone too "hole-in-the-wall."

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