It’s Friday, Friday! Cue Rebecca Black:
This Friday is extra good since it has been another one of those weeks. Hopefully, this weekend I’ll get a chance to get caught up on life (piles of laundry, unopened mail, and a dishwasher full of clean dishes that has been waiting to be emptied since Wednesday), and hopefully I’ll get a chance to do some writing! I’ve been seriously neglecting the blog this week, and I found this half written post this morning so I decided to share it with you. And it’s delicious.
When we were visiting my mom and dad in Palm Springs back in February, my mom made a delicious Mexican soup. Jon loved it, her guests loved it, and I really liked it. It had a bit of a salsa flavour to it, which was not my fave. Since then, I’ve been having sporadic cravings for this delicious soup, or another version, and last month I came across this post for Yuca & Avocado Soup over at Honest Fare. And it’s delicious! I thought it was the perfect blend of flavours. The hubs still prefers my mom’s soup (which she will be happy to know, because as you know, she is my most loyal reader… hi mom!) Honest Fare’s version is a vegetarian soup. I had about 1/2 of a small rotisserie chicken that I shredded and added to the soup to give even more protien.
The ingredients make this meal look more complicated than it is. In fact, it’s pretty simple.
The only thing I hadn’t cooked with before was yuca (aka cassava), a delicious tuber plant. It’s always a little nerve wracking to try cooking with a new vegetable. Luckily, I learned over at Honest Fare that you need to peel a couple of layers down to get to the white chalky inside. The outside layers are a little bit slimy.
Prep wise, this soup just requires chopping your veggies. Then it’s really just a matter of sautéing the veggies, then adding all the soup ingredients everything up, and letting it simmer.
Once the soup is done serve it in bowls and let your diners (in this case, myself and the hubs) garnish with: 1. Fresh Cilantro, 2. Cheese, 3. Avocado Slices, 4. Baked Tortilla Chips, and 5. Frank’s Red Hot.
Delicious. (Though I’m not going to win any food styling awards for that rogue piece of green onion… oops!)
Yuca Avocado Soup
From: Honest Fare
Ingredients
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 1 veggie bouillon cube (I used chicken)
- 1 can stewed tomatoes, fire roasted if possible
- 2 big handfuls fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
- 2-3 green onions, sliced thin
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- Salt to taste
- Cracked black pepper to taste
- Juice from 2 limes
- 6-8 cups water
- Drizzle olive oil
- 1 green cubanelle pepper, very thinly sliced (I forgot this, it was fine.)
- 1 red cubanelle or bell pepper, very thinly sliced (I used a bell pepper)
- 2 carrots, peeled and sliced into thin disks
- 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained (You can use dried black beans, either just soak them first and use extra water, or cook them to taste first (which I did, so my soup didn’t get all black bean goopy)
- 1 large yuca root, peeled and cut into disks (Also called Cassava)
- (Optional: Sheredded Chicken)
- Ripe avocado slices
- Corn tortilla chips
- Shredded monterey jack cheese
- Frank’s Red Hot!
Directions
Heat olive oil in pot and add garlic, onions, carrots, a good sprinkle of salt and half your cilantro. Sauté on medium heat until onions start to become soft. Add red and green peppers, the canned tomatoes and beans, some cracked black pepper and about a teaspoon more of salt. Stir and cook for a few minutes. Then add water, lime juice and the veggie bouillon cube and increase heat to bring to a boil.
Add yuca (and optional chicken) once pot is just before the boiling point. Let boil, partially covered for several minutes and then reduce heat to medium low and continue cooking until yuca is cooked through. Yuca should be gooey on the outside and soft through the centre. Once it’s done, stir in the remaining cilantro.
To serve, fill bowls half way with soup. Sprinkle a couple spoonfuls of cheese over top, add a few tortilla chips and avocado slices. Oh yea, hot sauce makes it even better!
Literally ROTFL at Rebecca Black video. Also, YUMMY. Now, the cereal I was going to have for breakfast is just not good enough.
My fave is “tomorrow is saturday… and sunday, comes afterwards”. Now that is a lyric to remember :)
And I love cereal for dinner. It’s delicious!
Er, I meant dinner. Of course, breakfast is when normal people eat cereal …
Hi Baby!