Chicken Tortilla Soup

Tonight's cooking project was chicken tortilla soup, a very easy but incredibly flavorful recipe. The most involved part of the dish was making the chicken stock from scratch. Presumably one could just use canned chicken broth, but I'm inclined to make my own when and if time allows. I prefer this (even though it requires a lot of time) as the end product is generally more flavorful than the canned stuff (with the addition of cilantro) and probably contains much less sodium. As I have no life, there is sufficient time to make the dish totally from scratch.

The recipe (which is very forgiving even if you don't have all the ingredients or wish to make modifications) is as follows:

• One chicken breast
• An onion diced and halved
• Four cloves of garlic
• Cilantro to taste
• Two diced jalepeno peppers (one green, one red)
• 12oz bag of corn
• Salt and white pepper to taste
• Mexican style cheese
• Lime juice
• tortillas

In stock pot, combine the chicken breast with half the diced onion, half the diced garlic, and cilantro and simmer for an hour and a half.

Remove the chicken breast and drain the broth. Dice/shred the chicken.

In a heavy saucepan saute the remaining onion and garlic until tender and add the diced chicken and saute a few minutes.

Add chicken broth and water (if needed) to make a suffficient quanity of soup. Add the diced jalepenos and corn and simmer for 30 to 45 minutues.

Once the appropriate flavor has been achieved, add cilantro and lime juice (to taste) reduce heat and simmer a few moments. Add salt and white pepper to taste.

Ladle into bowls and add tortillas and queso.

Enjoy. :)