{"id":873,"date":"2015-05-11T22:04:30","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T03:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcandres.com\/?p=856"},"modified":"2015-11-06T11:34:35","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T17:34:35","slug":"los-feliz-navidad-tortilla-soup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=873","title":{"rendered":"Los Feliz Navidad: Tortilla Soup"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D873&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1055\" style=\"width: 423px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1055\" href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?attachment_id=1055\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1055\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1055    \" title=\"Tortilla Xmas Tree2\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Tortilla-Xmas-Tree2-948x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"413\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Tortilla-Xmas-Tree2-948x1024.jpg 948w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Tortilla-Xmas-Tree2-92x100.jpg 92w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Tortilla-Xmas-Tree2-277x300.jpg 277w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 413px) 100vw, 413px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1055\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ave Tortilla<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We held our annual holiday party this week.\u00a0 Although since we hadn\u2019t hosted the party since \u201907\u2020, calling it annual is something of a stretch.<\/p>\n<p>But enough dwelling on the past.\u00a0 We\u2019re back.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, I\u2019m not quite through dwelling in the past. Because the holidays (well, just Christmas, really) have a lot to do with the origins of this blog.<\/p>\n<p>In San Francisco, when my wife and I were first courting (and the courtship continues), we began making little foodstuffs we would pass along to our friends and family for the holidays.\u00a0 The first things we made were infused oils and whole grain mustards. Very potent.\u00a0 Next we switched to salad dressings, but those didn\u2019t keep very well. Finally, when we became engaged and moved to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz, we hit upon the gift that kept on giving: Soup.<\/p>\n<p>During that time, my work on the 1997 revision of <em>The Joy of Cooking<\/em> left me with a lot of experience canning jams, and jellies, and catsups, and compotes, and preserves.\u00a0 Not to mention a closet full of mason jars filled with this stuff.<\/p>\n<p>From there we were only a hop, skip and a pressure cooker away from jarring Christmas soups for all our loved ones.\u00a0 Something we\u2019ve done ever since.<\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t remember what the first soups we made were.\u00a0 But you can be sure that a majority of the soups I\u2019ve created for this blog came from this young holiday tradition. \u00a0Sadly, the same cannot be said for the recipes.\u00a0 Like a fool or a prima donna (take your pick) I never wrote anything down, which means that the soup blog is part re-run and part re-invention.<\/p>\n<p>Lucky for you, that incarnation of the blog is drawing to a close.\u00a0 And one of the few soups left in my repertoire that I haven\u2019t written about yet is Tortilla soup.<\/p>\n<p>This soup was the first one we packaged with its own bagful of garnish. \u00a0Very folksy. \u00a0The strange thing about tortilla soup is that it only becomes tortilla soup in the last few seconds before it\u2019s served.\u00a0 Until then it\u2019s pepper, onion and cilantro soup.\u00a0 That\u2019s when the bagful of garnish (fried tortilla strips) comes into play.<\/p>\n<p>The soup turned out very well this time (if you ignore the reactions of my two children).\u00a0 That is to say my wife and I loved it.\u00a0 The soup probably would have looked more \u201cChristmassy\u201d if I had used red and green bell peppers, but the yellow ones were on sale for $0.79\/lb.\u00a0 The lower price together with the fact that brightly colored peppers (i.e. not green) are a lot sweeter made it a win-win situation.<\/p>\n<p>Now\u00a0 I just have to get out the mason jars and the pressure cooker, whip up another three to five gallon batch of this stuff and I\u2019m halfway home for the holidays.<\/p>\n<p>\u2020<em> Note: \u00a0This three year holiday party gap has nothing to do with the war on Christmas or any of the other nonsense conjured up by the good people of cable TV-land.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Tortilla Soup<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n1 T canola oil<br \/>\n6 cups red or yellow bell pepper, diced<br \/>\n3 cups onions, diced1 large onion, chopped<br \/>\n6 cups stock<br \/>\n1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped<br \/>\n2 t ground coriander<br \/>\nsalt &amp; pepper to taste<br \/>\n1\u00bd -2 cups canola oil<br \/>\n5 small corn tortillas, cut into thin 2-3 inch strips<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Heat the oil in a \u00a0medium (3 quart) soup pot and saut\u00e9 the peppers      and onions \u00a0until \u00a0tender (5-7 minutes).<\/li>\n<li>Add the stock, cilantro, coriander, seasonings and      bring the soup to a boil before reducing to a simmer and for 20-30      minutes.<\/li>\n<li>While the soup is simmering, heat up the additional      canola oil in a small pot and fry the tortilla strips in small batches      until they just start to change color, then remove them from the oil and      drain them on some paper towels. (Save to oil for your future frying      needs).<\/li>\n<li>At service time, after you ladle the soup into the      bowls, sprinkle a few of the fried tortilla strips over the top and let      them sink into the broth.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em><br \/>\nImage Credit:\u00a0 \u201cA-maize-ing Grace\u201d tortilla relief and photo by the author.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>I hope you\u2019re having a nice holiday season so far. (Yes, it\u2019s begun already.)\u00a0 Do you have any favorite soups for this season.\u00a0 Let me know in a comment. I\u2019ll be reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> responding.<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We held our annual holiday party this week.\u00a0 Although since we hadn\u2019t hosted the party since \u201907\u2020, calling it annual is something of a stretch. But enough dwelling on the past.\u00a0 We\u2019re back. Actually, I\u2019m not quite through dwelling in the past. Because the holidays (well, just Christmas, really) have a lot to do with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,126,64,115,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bell-peppers","category-no-dairy-products","category-herbs","category-tortillas","category-vegetarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/1303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}