Tortilla Soup

I love soups, there are just so many of them, and they go together so nicely with fresh bread. Just about every time we make a turkey my dad and I make stock from the bones to use in soups. There was one unfortunate year where we made a giant pot of stock and then forgot all about it, that poor stock had to be thrown away. If you remember to use it, I think homemade broth makes better soups, although as I learned from a commercial, most canned broths have MSG, and who can compete with that? People may be against MSG but it does make things quite tasty, all that umami (I learned about that from a book, NOT from a soy sauce commercial, I swear). Anyways, I used homemade stock in this soup, and leftover turkey, but you could always used the canned stuff. Also, this is a pretty basic recipe, feel free to jazz it up however you want. I found the recipe here, but I would use a bit more spice than called for, and if you like spicy things than I would definitely recommend adding whatever it is you prefer to spice things with, red pepper flakes, hot sauce, hot peppers, before you blend it all, because it is pretty mild as is.

Start with one good sized onion

Chop it up along with some garlic.

Toss the onion and garlic into the soup pot with a bit of olive oil and cook until they are nice and soft.

Add your stock and a big can of whole, peeled tomatoes. Simmer together for awhile with the spices.

Cut the tortillas into strips and toss them in the pot along with the lime juice.

Blend it all together, note the brand spankin' new immersion blender....

It will look like this once you are done blending. Now it's time to add the corn, turkey, and beans. Then you can just keep it warm until you are ready to eat it.

Get your toppings ready, I have cheddar cheese, cilantro and avocados. O and toasted tortilla strips that I forgot to take a picture of, just toss some strips on a cookie sheet and put it in the oven for a few minutes until they are golden and crunchy.

Top your soup with whatever your heart desires (the avocados were quite tasty, I would highly recommend them) and enjoy.