Chicken Tortilla Soup - by Stace

My husband and I invented this recipe at our first house in Fort Worth. We enjoyed cooking it together while listening to music and drinking wine. As our girls have gotten older, we have included them in the cooking; they enjoy "doing it themselves." This is a kid favorite that our girls request often. I hope to be able to make it with my grandchildren someday, sharing the stories of warmth and togetherness it brought to our blended family -- one of our first original traditions :)

Ingredients:
1 pound of trimmed chicken breasts
3 T olive oil
1 lg onion, chopped
1 jalapeño, chopped
1 box of organic chicken broth (32 oz)
4 T butter
1 can crushed organic tomatoes
1 can black refried beans
1 can whole black beans
1 or 2 cans Hatch red enchilada sauce
2 bags (32 oz) frozen corn
1 bag corn tortillas
16 oz Monterey Jack Cheese
1 large avocado

Directions:

• Sauté onion and jalepeno in saucepan (with olive oil)
• Add chicken and cook until tender. Set aside to cool
• While chicken is cooking, pour 1 box (32 oz) of broth into saucepan
• Let broth get hot, then add butter
• After butter melts, add crushed tomatoes
• Allow to simmer for a few minutes
• Add beans and Hatch sauce
• Add onion and jalepeno (from chicken pot)
• Add chicken (simmer 20 minutes)
• Add corn (simmer 30 minutes)
• Cut tortillas into strips and fry in oil
• Salt strips and place in bottom of soup bowls
• Top soup with Monterey jack cheese and avocado slices

Notes: You can use a whole chicken if you like. Boil it, set it aside to cool. Then remove skin and tear apart for soup. My husband has a thing about touching chicken while it is on the bone, so we usually use boneless, skinless chicken breast (so we don't gross him out).

01/26/2011 -- More Notes - I made this soup again last night, and I used a slightly different process. It was the best soup yet! I started with boiling a chicken (added sloppy slices of onion and carrot along with salt) in one pot. Then I melted butter in my dutch oven, added diced jalepenos and Serrano peppers (because we ran out of home grown habanero and that is what the grocery store had available). I let those cook for a minute or two, releasing the oils. Then I added fire-roasted crushed tomatoes. Next I took the broth right from the pot of chicken and added it to the dutch oven. I then added my other ingredients one by one. The soup was smoky and spicy -- just the way I like it, so I thought I would share...

posted by Stace