Tortilla Soup

Okay, there is this one place in Playa del Carmen that has wonderful tortilla soup. It is very creamy and warms you up. We had it the other day and I have been craving it ever since. I looked up a few recipes and sort of combined some and made adjustments.
Today at the fruteria we got the stuff we needed and a bunch of fruit I have never had. We are going to branch out and try new things. For breakfast I am planning on making some sort of tropical fruit and plantain crepe situation.

But tonight it was tortilla soup. Since the pain in my hands teeters between awful and absolutely unbearable, I use my mini chopper all the time. For just about everything. So in went my onion, red bell pepper, garlic and jalapeno. I threw that in some oil to soften.


I chopped up 2 tomatoes, -(next time I will use more) and threw those in too. I added some cumin and a little salt and pepper.

After about 3-4 minutes I added some chicken stock. I had made some chicken soup from scratch the other day and had set this aside. I let it boil for a and cook down.

In another saute pan I heated some oil and fried some tortilla strips. While they were draining on a towel I threw on a little salt and pappy's seasoning.

To plate the soup I put a little handful of tortilla strips, spooned some soup, added some chopped avocado, a squeeze of lime and some fresh cilantro (from my garden!!! YEAH!!!)
*** If I would have had queso fresco I would have put that on top- possibly crema as well (Mexican sour cream) But we did not. Chicken would have been really good in this too***

The kids loved this soup as well. I want to eat the last of it but I know that Ruben will want to have some of this when he gets home from work.

Ruben had a good idea... he said that he would blend it with some tortillas and then put a few strips for garnish. This would make it easy to reheat as well.