Sopa de Tortilla

It was a long... LONG week last week. It felt like we hardly cooked, yet all our food is mysteriously gone & all but one of our recipes was made, and no take out was ordered... so, we obviously cooked in there somewhere.

Yesterday, we made one of the kids' favorites... Tortilla Soup! A wonderful woman, by the name of Vanessa runs the site Pure Hunger where she makes some delicious meals & treats-- and where we found, what is now, one of our family recipe staples! She recently, also, had KK as guest blogger on her site. Check out her site, there is sure to be an array of different recipes you'll love to try!

This recipe required me to do all the before hand prep, but this also made it MUCH easier for KK to cook this recipe "on her own". This recipe was adapted from Pure Hunger's Sopa de Tortilla recipe! I highly suggest heading over to Vanessa's site if you are wanting a chicken version, as ours is a vegetarian version!

Sopa de Tortilla Ingredients

1 dried Ancho Chili
1/2 cup boiling water
2 Tbs Olive Oil
1 medium Onion, Chopped
2 Carrots, Sliced
2 stalks Celery, Sliced
3 cloves Garlic, Sliced
2 tsp ground Cumin
6 cups No Chicken Broth OR Vegetable Broth
1 28oz can diced Tomatoes
1/2 cup Cilantro leaves
6 Corn Tortillas
Vegetable oil for frying

For Garnish

• Avocados, sliced
• Cheddar Cheese, grated
• Lime wedges
  
• Cilantro
• Sour cream

• Place chili in small, heatproof bowl; pour boiling water over and let soak 30 minutes. While chili is sitting, slice all the vegetables and placing them in a bowl together. Once chili is done, drain, remove stem and seeds. Slice into 1/2 inch strips and set aside.

• In heavy bottom pot, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion, carrots and celery {Mirepoix} and cook for about 8 minutes, stirring often until vegetables have softened.
  

• Add garlic and cumin and cook an additional 2 minutes.
  

• Add broth, tomatoes, reserved chili and cilantro and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
  

• With your hands, tear 3 tortillas into 2-inch strips and add to the soup. Stir & continue to simmer for 15 minutes.

• Take soup off heat and with an immersion blender, puree soup until smooth {or puree in small batches in a blender or food processor, as we did-I have on good authority we will be the proud owners of an immersion blender after Christmas- Hooray for awesome family members!}

• Slice remaining tortillas into 1/4 inch strips. In small sauce pan heat oil until very hot. Fry tortilla strips until crisp, about 1 minute, turning often. With a slotted spoon, removed strips to a paper-towel lined plate and optionally you can season with salt {as previously mentioned, our poor cupboards are bare as it was end of the week & the day before grocery shopping day, alas, we were out of sea salt! This part was also done by Dad for us!}
  

Serve soup in bowls topped with tortilla strips and any or all of optional garnishes! Enjoy friends!

xoxo,

KK & Brooke

Note: This makes A LOT of soup, about half this recipe feeds all five of us comfortably- but, it is SO good there is never a need for us to make a half recipe because we CRAVE the leftovers! But, if you have a smaller family- you may want to cut this in half!