Earlier today, my friend Craig sent me this recipe with these comments:

“Gluten free (or nearly, depends on the hot sauce). Made it tonight and it was well received. I added a sweet red pepper and cayenne to the recipe, doubled the amount of cumin, and double the hot sauce. Could use a tad more flavor still. Karen suggested roasting the vegetables before adding them, and I agree. For your recipe collection.”

I thought it looked good but I lacked several of the ingredients including the chicken. But soups are the very definition of food flexibility so I instead made a turkey version of it designed to use up Thanksgiving turkey. Virtually the whole pot went the first day so I can declare this one a success.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 of a red onion, diced
  • 6 to 8 cloves of garlic, minced
  • Vegetable oil sautéing the vegetables
  • 3 Jalapeño pepper, roasted then mostly seeded and diced
  • 2 tsps Sriracha
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 2 cups hot water
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 2 chicken bouillon cubes
  • 1 can creamed corn, 14.5 oz (I used Libby’s Cream Style Sweet Corn)
  • 1 can diced tomatoes, 14.5 oz (I used Red Gold diced tomatoes with Garlic and Onion)
  • 2 cups half and half
  • 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
  • 1-1/2 pounds cooked turkey, cubed

Steps

  1. Roast the Jalapeño peppers over a flame if you can. A picture of my crazy approach to this is below. Seed and dice them.
  2. Sauté the diced onion in a small amount of vegetable oil for 4 to 5 minutes. Add the Jalapeño peppers half way thru. Add the minced garlic at the end and saute for one minute while moving around aggressively to prevent the garlic from burning.
  3. Add the 2 cups of water, the cumin and the cayenne pepper and bring to boil. Turn down and let simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.
  4. Add the chicken broth, the corn, the tomatoes, the half and half, the turkey and the cheese. Cook and stir over low heat until cheese is melted. Top with crushed tortilla chips and cilantro if desired.

Roasting Peppers

I use a grease shield over an open flame burner to roast vegetables and then tongs to turn them. It works fantastically well:

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