Chicken Tortilla Soup

It's been, approximately, 10 years since my last post. I've been doing much more "studying" and less "baking" lately. This weekend was our first weekend at home for a month! We have been beaching, wedding, and Homecoming it up! We spent our weekend off catching up on our favorite shows, cleaning house, studying (guh), entertaining, praising, and (dun dun dun DUN!) cooking up a storm!

No really, we have so many leftovers. Please just come over and take things from our fridge. 

On Friday we mixed it up by added spinach to our normal Italian sausage and jalapeno pizza. Success! On Saturday my aunt and uncle came over for dinner and we made chicken stuffed with spinach, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives and Panko with homemade tomato sauce and brown rice. For dessert we had a blueberry ginger upside down cake. Absolute perfection.

Then today I finally made Chicken Tortilla soup! I've been wanting to make this Pioneer Woman recipe for a few months and I finally got around to it. Downside...the recipe said that it took almost 2 hours to make. I was not down with that. So, I made some changes and came up with this masterpiece.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. each: garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, salt
1 red pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
3 garlic cloves, smashed
1 c. corn
1/4 c. green chilies
2 cans black beans, drained
32 oz. chicken stock
4 c. water
3 tbsp. tomato paste
3 tbsp. corn meal + water (to make a paste)
5 tortilla strips, cut into slices
Cilantro
Sour Cream
Cheddar
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Rub chicken breasts lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with spices. Bake for 25 minutes, until done. Shred and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp. oil in a soup pot over medium high heat. Saute pepper, onion, garlic until soft.

Add tomato, chili and corn. Saute 1 minute.

Add black beans, stock, water and tomato paste. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer for 30 minutes.

Add chicken and corn meal mixture. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Add tortilla strips and turn off heat. Allow to sit for 5 minutes.

Top with cilantro, sour cream and cheddar. Season with salt and pepper as needed.