Tortilla Soup

This is our family's favorite new soup. A few months ago, I was asked to present some vegan recipes for a Supper Club in our neighborhood. (I posted the "chicken" enchilada recipe from that presentation previously on the blog.) We absolutely love the tortilla soup at California Pizza Kitchen, and since the supper club theme was American Southwestern, I decided to try to recreate that delicious soup. There are lots of copy-cat recipes online, but this is one of the closest I've been able to find. I've modified a recipe from www.copycat-recipes.net.

As the soup bubbled on the stove, my daughter moaned and groaned, "You're killing me, Mom!" I was alarmed. "Why?" I asked. "That soup smells soooo good! And I'm hungry." Whew...if that was all... :-)

Ingredients:

3 Tb. light olive oil

6 corn tortillas, cut into squares

3 Tb. minced garlic

1/4 cup diced yellow onion

2 cups frozen yellow and white corn, divided

4 roma tomatoes, chopped

2/3 cup tomato paste

2 Tb. ground cumin

3 tsp. salt

2 tsp. vegan chicken seasoning (McKays)

1 tsp. chili powder

6 cups water

2 cans diced mild green chiles

blue tortilla chips (opt. garnish)

fresh cilantro (opt. garnish)

fresh avocado, diced (opt. garnish)

Instructions:

In a large pot, sauté corn tortillas in olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and continue to sauté, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Cook for perhaps a minute. Add 1 cup of corn and all other ingredients (except garnishes, of course) and stir to combine. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes. With a stick blender, blend soup until it's the consistency of a thick puree. If you do not have an immersion blender, you can process in a regular blender, but be careful to just pulse it a few times to break up the corn tortillas.

Return soup to heat and add the rest of the corn, plus the two cans of green chiles. Bring to a brief boil, then serve immediately with garnishes of choice.

This is a large amount of soup, but I promise you, it won't be around for long! :-)