I was trying for a chicken fiesta type soup last night… I think I managed to pull it off!

My inspiration was a recipe from Racheal Ray called, “White Chicken Chili”. A friend of mine HIGHLY recommended it. So last night off I went to the grocery store to purchase the ingredients but when I got there, the grocery list in my head vanished. I texted my friend – I called her house – I called her cell – I called her hubby’s cell. I couldn’t reach her. I managed to remember that I needed Chicken Stock and picked up a few other groceries for the rest of the weekend and headed home. I was gonna wing it!

The groceries left in my fridge and cupboard were really….. slim to say the least. I was going to have to be creative. The big shopping trip isn’t until the middle of next week.

Here are the ingredients I ended up with:

2 TBSP butter
1 medium onion (finely chopped)
2-3 cloves of garlic (chopped, I use a garlic press)
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt

I put those together in the pot first, and cooked them until the onions were soft, about 5-7 minutes. Then I added the rest:

1 1/2 cartons of chicken stock (each carton was 900ml)
1 can of corn
1 can of beans (don’t laugh, it was supposed to be 3 cans of white beans that I didn’t have, it worked out OK)
1 large can of diced tomatoes
1 green pepper chopped
2 tsp of cumin
salt and pepper to taste
1 more garlic clove (chopped – I love garlic!!)

I let that come to a boil and then turned it down to simmer.

At the same time – I was cooking the chicken (thoroughly cooked until it was browned):

4 small breast of chicken (it’s all I had, I chopped it very finely into strips)
Olive Oil
1 clove of garlic (chopped)
salt and pepper to taste

Once the chicken was so very cooked – I drained the oil off and added it to the pot of soup.

One last ingredient I added because this was clearly becoming a “everything but the kitchen sink – soup”, I had a cup and a bit of rice left over from the dinner the night before. I threw that in too.

Voila!

Shasher’s Spicy Southwest Chicken Soup!