Soup and Stew Sunday #2: Spicy Tomato Soup

Well, it's Tuesday, and that means I'm late in putting up our recipe for Soup and Stew Sunday. Over the weekend, we made a really amazing tomato soup, recipe from one of Carolyn's Moosewood Cookbooks (Carolyn, check to make sure that link is the right book). You'll need a blender for this recipe. Without further ado, here's our recipe:

3 cups chopped onion
2 tablespoons of oil

As usual, saute the onions in the oil. Saute them lightly; you'll see that the onion is only ingredient that has crunch, so you do not want to overcook it.

2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon oregano

Add these spices to the onion and saute another minute or two to let the flavors fry into the onion and oil.

1 quart tomato juice
1 can of diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons minced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (this can be found canned in most grocery stores)

Add these ingredients and let it cook for about 10 minutes. It gets interesting next.

2 cups corn tortilla chips, blended up
3 cups of the soup

Blend the chips into the soup until it is a single emulsification. Pour it in with the rest of the soup (use a little water or tomato juice or non-blended soup to get it all out properly). Then stir it all together.

Garnish with anything green (the book recommends avocado, which would be awesome).

This soup was one of my favorites to date. I realize that our loyal readers are only aware of one other Soup and Stew Sundays recipe so far, but we've been doing this for months, so that's saying something. It was also fantastically filling. Carolyn made french loaf, sliced it up and made cheesy bread to go with it. Delicious.

A few notes about changes:
-The recipe called for vegetable stock rather than tomato juice; I'm very happy we went with the juice.
-I added more chipotle than the recipe called for. I would like to add even more in the future, but Carolyn thought it was a touch too spicy.
-At the time, I thought we used too much tortilla chip, but looking back, I was pretty happy with it. The recipe actually only calls for 1.5 cups, but I just tossed in all the leftovers of a bag.
-Next time less onion, more diced tomato.

Final thoughts: This soup only took about 45 minutes from start to finish, only requires 7 ingredients, and tastes amazing. I could see eating it year round, too. The only fresh ingredient is onion, so it could be considered a winter soup. The flavor really lends itself to pairing with fresh green things, though. Maybe it's a bit too hot to eat in middle of summer, but even then I probably wouldn't turn it down. Definitely making it again soon.