Lunch for the Week: Crockpot {spicyish} Tortilla Soup

Disclaimer: This is not my mom's tortilla soup. If you have ever tried her's you probably jumped with joy when you saw the title of this post thinking I was sharing Deb's tortilla soup recipe just in time for winter, but her "recipe" takes a lot of feeling or heart or some kind of mom-power because I have followed it to the T and not had success. So this is the next best thing, and maybe I'll have ole Deb do a guest post (or a few- she is the queen of all things power shopping and dessert baking).

This hearty, meaty, crockpotty, mexicany, veggie-packed, flavor-packed soup has the approval of me, BF and the neighbors. My neighbors hosted a boozy movie night and I offered to bring supper. This was the easiest thing I could have done- I put all the ingredients in the crockpot the night before, stored it in the fridge, and in the morning took it out, plugged it in and let it cook all day. 4 of us ate it at the movie night and it also supplied my lunch for the week.

Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 6-8 hours in the crockpot
Servings: 10

Ingredients:

• 1.75 lbs of chicken thighs (they have the bone-in, don't worry the chicken falls right off the bones and it's easy to pull them out after it cooks in the crockpot) ($4.00)
• 1 can black beans ($.99)
• 2 cups frozen corn ($1.00)
• 6 cups low sodium natural chicken broth ($5.00)
• 2 cans of diced tomatoes with chiles (with the juice) ($2.50)
• 1 little can (6 ozs) green chiles (you can cut up your own too!) ($1.00)
• 2 medium green bell peppers, diced ($1.75)
• 1/2 large onion, diced ($.50)
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp onion powder

Combine all all the ingredients in a crockpot. Cook on low for 6-9 hours. When there is an hour left to cook, pull out the chicken using two forks and put onto a plate. Remove all the chicken meat from the bones (it should fall riiiight off the bone). You might have to fish around with the fork a little to make sure you get all the bones out of the pot. Put the meat back into the crockpot and allow everything to cook together for another hour.

Remove the soup from the heat and allow it to set for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Ready to cook

Ready to eat. She's not pretty, but she sure is tasty.