Food Blogging: Chicken Vegetable Soup

 

This was tonight's dinner.  There are some things I am very good at cooking, and chicken soup is one of them.  I don't generally blog about food or share recipes because, well, I don't typically use recipes.  I have a few things I just know how to make and really?  Soup-->not hard.

But I'll make an exception with this 'cause it's so damned good, and pretty unusual for chicken soup.  It lacks the typical soup vegetables of carrots and peas and whatnot.  It's pretty heavily influenced by caldo.  A recipe, which of course can be tweaked to your own standards:

Chicken Soup

1 qt. chicken stock (I shamelessly used the boxed stuff from HEB)
1 can diced tomatoes & green chilies, undrained
1 big red bell pepper
1/2 head cabbage
2 calabaza squashes
6 oz sliced baby portabello mushrooms
6 skinless chicken thighs, deboned
minced garlic (this is where I show how truly lazy I am--I buy big jars of this stuff rather than mincing my own), cumin and chili powder to taste

Pour stock into a largish pan.  Add tomatoes & chilies and mushrooms.  Cut pepper into large dice, add.  Slice cabbage into ribbons, add.  Slice squashes into coins, add.  Chop chicken into large chunks, add.  Add enough water to cover the vegetables, if necessary.  Season liberally with garlic, chili powder, & cumin.  I go heavy on the seasonings.  Simmer an hour or more.  Serves at least 4.

Now, I'm sure there are more complicated ways to make soup.  I could have browned the chicken in olive oil or peeled the peppers and squash or something.  But I'm lazy, and I have a 10-week-old who thinks that THE WORLD WILL END RIGHT NOW if she is away from me for more than maybe two minutes at a time.  So I don't do stuff like that.

And you know what?  My kids ate this up.  They looked at me like I was crazy when they found the squash, but they ate it.

I was also going to add in new onions and fideo (vermicelli), but my pan wasn't large enough.  Next time...