New Year’s Resolutions and an Easy Weeknight Soup – Chicken Tortilla

Unbelievable, we’re already three weeks into January & I’m failing my New Year’s resolutions already. I love the New Year. I  love resolutions. There’s just something refreshing about starting a new year with new goals. It really helps me to put my goals for the year on paper. I don’t usually achieve them all, but I’m bound to accomplish a few! This year I made it into a little art project. I saw something done similarly on minted.com, but their version documented a  trip &I  thought it would work well with my resolutions. I did mine in adobe illustrator, but Microsoft Publisher would have would just a easy….I just centered all of the text, used a different font in caps for each line, and did the header “joan’s resolutions” and the date, “2014” in an italicized font. Easy Cheesy! {See full size here: joan’s resolutions.}

The Chicken Tortilla soup I made this past week falls into the “eat healthy” category of my resolutions, plus it’s extremely easy to make and the kids love it. I use a version from Laurie David’s  The Family Dinner cookbook. When your life is full of all those activities you signed your kids up for, do as I do- feel free to make your life a little easier and  just buy a pre-roasted chicken from the grocery store.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

adapted from The Family Dinner by Laurie David & Kirstin Uhrenholdt

Ingredients:

• 2 T. olive oil
• 1 large onion, sliced into wedges
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 T. ground cumin
• 2 t. chopped fresh oregano or 1 t. dried
• 1 1/2 cups favorite tomato salsa
• 8 cups chicken stock
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup corn tortillas, torn
• ******************toppings ******************
• shredded cheese
• crumbled tortilla chips
• sour cream
• shredded cabbage
• diced avocado
• limes for squeezing
• chopped up cilantro

Cooking Directions:

1. In a large pot, saute the onion, garlic and cumin in the heated olive oil for 3 to 4 minutes.
2. Add the oregano, salsa, stock and chicken breasts and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes and then remove the breasts.
3. Add the tortillas to the stock mixture and cook about 5 minutes.
4. With a handheld blender, or in a blender, blend the soup until smooth.
5. Shred the chicken & place it and the other toppings into bowls.
6. Serve the soup and let everyone garnish as they like.