Today we are going to pay soup homage to my hometown, but before we start mincing up jalapenos let me share of few soup tips and answer your questions. First, I just have to say that I’m so thrilled to hear how much you love soup. I feel like I’m blogging among kindred spirits.

And if that is too Anne of Green Gables for you and you find soup to be a poor excuse for a meal then this is not the week for you. Don’t despair, there are more badger posts on the horizon.

For the rest of you, the soup-lovers, this is my number one weapon of choice. When it comes to making soups, there can be a lot of chopping and that can be intimidating not to mention time consuming. This baby, however, can knock out an onion without shedding a tear.

It came wrapped up for my birthday two March’s ago and has revolutionized my kitchen. Best of all, it can be completely (and safely) operated by this baby. So much so, that she considers the “grinder” her domain.

This little kerchief-donning Sous chef is as speedy as the Chopper. If I don’t give her a supervised task, she will quickly come up with her own unsupervised task. She is quite the secret weapon.

Of course these soups can be made without an “adorable, kerchief-wearing, long-haired, 3-year old chef-ess.” However, you will be missing a lot of “what can I do next?” and “I need another job, please.”

The wild rice soup (as well as the soup recipes to follow) freezes wonderfully as long as you don’t add the cream/milk before freezing it. I like to freeze soups in single servings for a quick lunch. This is quite helpful if I’m making a batch of soup that Nate isn’t particularly fond of. Speaking of freezing things, I make wild rice in large batches and freeze it in 1 1/2 cup portions.

Now here’s a 1 1/2 cup portion of where we are headed today:

Chicken Tortilla Soup with Guacamole–a soup guaranteed to take the chill off. Which is great if the clouds above have opened their doors and blasted your house with a fresh pile of snow. It’s true. Two more inches and more on it’s way down.

My first encounter with tortilla soup was ironically just outside an airport. This time it was across the Mississippi in El Paso, Texas. My family was returning home from two weeks in Minnesota, and we needed an immediate infusion of Mexican food.

We pulled directly into Jackson’s where they served piping hot bowls of tortilla soup instead of the standard chips and salsa. Having rarely strayed from the righteous path of freshly made enchiladas laced with the New Mexico red and green chile that grew across that street from our house, we were unfamiliar with the liquid burrito. The first bite was like coming home, and it has been a family favorite ever since.

Serve it with a box of tissue. Green chile and jalepenos are loaded with Vitamin C and are known to make your nose run.

Here’s what you need:

(Please excuse the glare. I didn’t have the courage to shut the shade. We have to get all the sunshine we can around these parts.)

• 4 cups of Chicken Broth
• 2 boneless, skinless Chicken Breasts, cut up into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 medium Onion
• 1 Celery stalk with leaves
• 1/2 Red Pepper
• 4 Garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon Cumin
• 1 10-ounce can diced Tomatoes with Green Chile
• 1 15-ounce can Black Beans, rinsed up nice
• 1 cup Frozen Corn
• 1/3 cup Cilantro (if preferred)
• 1/4 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes (if tolerated)
• Sea Salt and Ground Pepper, to taste

Here’s what you do:

• Bring Chicken Broth to boil in a medium saucepan. When it’s nice and bubbly throw in the chopped up Chicken Breast and boil for 6 minutes. Take a slotted spoon and fish out the cooked Chicken and set both aside.
• Throw the Onion and Celery into your food chopper and let it do it’s thing. Don’t put the Red Pepper in the chopper, it will basically juice it–not what you want at all. Cut the Red Pepper in half, clean out the ribbing and seeds. Then roughly chop up the Red Pepper.
• Warm up Olive Oil in a large stock pot and add Onion, Celery, Red Pepper, and Garlic. Saute them until soft, about 8 minutes.
• 
• Shake in the Cumin and stir it about for 1 minute.
• Stir in Chicken Broth, cooked Chicken Black Beans, Tomatoes with Green Chile, and Corn, and bring to a rolling bowl. Cover your soup, turn down the heat, and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
• Stir in the cilantro. Salt and pepper to your taste.

Now everyone knows you can add tortillas, cheese, and sour cream to tortilla soup. The best thing, the absolute best thing to top off your home-made tortilla soup is fresh guacamole. And with the handy chopper, it’s a breeze to make.

Here’s what you need:

(Look at that. The sun went down. No glare.)

• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 Lime, freshly squeezed
• 1/2 Jalapeno, minced
• 2 Garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon Sugar (not pictured)
• 2 tablespoons Red Onion, minced
• 2 tablespoons Cilantro, minced
• 1/4 cup frozen Corn, slightly thawed (don’t heat up)
• 1 Avocado
• Sea Salt and Ground Pepper to taste

For those of you who aren’t fluent in Avocado, here are some tips. When choosing an Avocado to be used that day, pick one that makes a small indentation when pressed lightly by your thumb. If your grocery store only has firm ones, stick the Avocado in a brown bag to speed up the ripening. Once you slice an Avocado you must eat it that day.

Ava learned this lesson yesterday when she poked her finger straight through our avocado. She had finished chopping up the carrots and celery for the wild rice soup, and was looking for a new occupation. She got one. With our avocado poked through, we had to store the wild rice soup in the refrigerator and whip up the tortilla soup in record time. Oh, but it was so tasty and you are about to see why.

Okay, here we go.

• In a medium bowl whisk together the Olive Oil, Lime juice and Sugar.
• Carefully mince the Jalapeno (keep or omit seeds depending on your heat tolerance) and add them to the mix.
• Stick the Garlic cloves into a handy little press and squeeze them into the mixture as well.
• Fire up your chopper and throw in the Red Onion and the Cilantro (separate batches of course). Stir them and the Corn into the liquid mixture.
• With a clean knife and cutting board (not one that touched Red Onion, Garlic, or Jalapeno) cut the Avocado crosswise rotating the knife around the pit. Twist the sliced Avocado until they come apart into two halves. With a large spoon carefully scoop out each half of the Avocado. Slice the Avocado into small chunks and carefully stir them in.
• Salt and Pepper to taste. Throw on the top of your Chicken Tortilla Soup and dig in or just eat it right out of the bowl. Either way, ENJOY!