MADDIE DAY here, with a toasty California-inspired soup for you, plus a California-based giveaway!
The California theme is by design, because I am currently at the Left Coast Crime fan convention in San Francisco. If you're there, please come to our Mystery Lovers' Kitchen panel tomorrow morning!
As a native southern Californian, the taste of corn tortillas and hominy, aka posole, topped with ripe avocado slices, is the flavor of my home state and the Southwest in general. And as a long-time resident of the opposite coast in northeastern Massachusetts, I often crave those tastes.
This soup is quite easy and brings a warm comfort meal in a chilly winter. My protagonist in the Cece Barton Mysteries doesn't eat chicken, so she might make a fish-based or purely vegetarian version.
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, minced
1 green pepper, diced
1 yellow, gold, or red pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 chicken breast or 2 thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 quart chicken stock
1 can hominy/posole, drained
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 whole habanero or jalapeno pepper
10 corn tortillas, cut into slivers (flour tortillas won't work in this dish)
1 avocado, peeled and sliced
Sour cream
Directions
Saute the onion in oil until tender. Add peppers and saute until wilted.
Add chicken and saute for a few minutes. Add garlic and saute one minute. Add stock, hominy, and spices. Enclose pepper in a tea ball and float in the soup. Bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer about an hour.
Add tortilla slivers and heat a few more minutes.
Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream and slices of avocado on each bowl. Enjoy!
Readers: What's your favorite Southwestern or Mexican food? I'll send one of you an advance copy of A Poisonous Pour, my third Cece Barton mystery.
🌮🌶🐔
We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.
Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.
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