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Showing posts with label salsa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salsa. Show all posts

Monday, February 8, 2010

Tortilla Soup and what not...

Can you tell I like easy cooking? Can you tell I like lots of flavor without a lot of work?

Nothing is easier  or more flavorful than opening a couple of cans from the pantry that you keep on hand to make a super yummy (I'm a word smith I know!) bowl of soup. 

One of the easiest tortilla soup recipes I've stolen and adapted just got tastier thanks to my homemade salsa recipe!   I dare you to try it and not thank me later! It's so good and super easy to make. Did I mention it was easy?

Ready? Set? Thank me later!!


 Angie's Homemade Tortilla Soup

  • 2 large ladles of Angie's Homemade Salsa
  • 1 can chicken broth
  • 1 can chicken breast in water, do not drain
  • 1 can black beans, use 1-2 tablespoons, undrained
  • 1 sm. can sliced black olives, to taste
  • shredded monterey jack cheese
  • tortilla chips crushed, or white corn tortilla (1) folded in 4th, and cut into small strips
  • Feel free to add any other garnishes to the soup like, avacado or sour cream. 
Dump all ingredients into sauce pan, or bowl for microwave and heat until hot. Garnish with shredded cheese. The end.

See?? I told you it would be easy!! And guess what???!!! 

My girls ate it even tho it had "stuff" in it!! (You know, the same stuff they won't eat on a tortilla chips!)

Stay tuned for a White Chicken Chili  recipe using my homemade salsa that'll blow your socks off!! 




Sunday, February 7, 2010

The best salsa EVER!!

I make a mean salsa. Ask my kids. They LOVE it! Well, they LOVE the taste of it. They don’t actually eat the chunks of salsa, they dip their chips into it and shake off the “chunks” so that just the chip is flavored with it. As you can imagine, the salsa gets “dry” after all that dipping. Sometimes I add extra water so that its very loose so my kids can still “eat” it and not siphon all the liquid out. 
All that to say, I LOVE my salsa recipe. It’s very easy. It’s almost the same as Pioneer Woman Cooks’ recipe here, but not quite. Go take a look at her recipe with pictures (a food photog I am not!) and see how she does it. If you have a food processer you can use that, but I don’t, so I use my blender. I really need a new one! (Hint, hint!!) I don’t use cumin in my version, but the concept of her recipe and mine are the same. I created mine all by myself. I’m so proud! Mine’s a little different and it reminds me of my favorite restaurant salsa Cristina’s here in Texas. I ate an obscene amount of it over Christmas break in 2008 and vowed I wouldn’t pay 20 dollars for chips and salsa ever again.

Angie’s Homemade Salsa


Put the ingredients in a blender in the order you see below.

After the first 4 ingredients are in the blender, (onion, garlic,cilantro,salsa casera) pulse until almost smooth. If it gets bound up in the blender like mine does, then add some of the tomatoes to get it going. We want all the pieces the same size, so basically just short of pureed. Then add the rest of tomatoes and pulse again a couple of times.
This is the point that I taste and adjust my seasonings. Usually don’t though, it’s always just right. At the end is where I add salt and pepper and lime juice.
Then it’s ready to serve! Easy, take me less than 5 minutes to make and everyone loves it! Keeps in the fridge for about 3 days, but never really makes it that long.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

1/4  medium yellow onion, diced
1-2 garlic cloves peeled, depending on how much you love garlic
1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed and patted dry , about a cup
1 small can of Salsa Casera -found in the Mexican aisle of the grocery store and looks like this: 
salsa casera

It’s a little on the hot side if you use the whole can, but if you use just 1 to 2 Tablespoons to start out with, you can add more as you go for more flavor and heat. (I’m a wimp, so I don’t use a whole lot unless I’m making a very large batch.)

1 large can  or two regular cans of diced tomatoes in juice
the juice of half a lime
salt and pepper to taste

And that’s it!

It’s so good daughter #2’s friends beg her to bring them some in exchange for other goodies. I am seriously thinking about giving them some for the holidays. Can you picture it? A jar of salsa with a tag that says, “You are one spicy Valentine!” Cute, huh?
You can do so much with the salsa too! We like it on eggs, in Chicken Enchiladas, tacos, soup, and anything else you can think of!
Enjoy!!