Mas Fiesta Por Favor!

With my original all day fiesta planned I was going to make a yummy Mexican lunch last Saturday (along with last posts "breakfast" and a dinner recipe!) As I said last time I decided to share the love and we had the lunch meal for a beyond filling and utterly scrumptious dinner. I was quite pleased when my three year old literally piped up "This is so good Momma, I am so happy to be eating this!" That is all the approval I need. 

So for Cinco de Mayo -  Part Dos we have:

Sopa Mexicana Deliciosa

1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 onion
3 cloves garlic
8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 can fiesta corn
2 cans black beans
4 cups chicken broth
1 can lite coconut milk
Zest and juice of two limes
Cumin, Mrs. Dash's Fiesta Lime, Salt, Pepper, Garlic salt to taste
2 avocado's sliced
Tortilla strips
Cilantro and green onion for garnish
Prepared rice

Start by sauteing diced onion, can of corn and garlic in olive oil.  When tender add diced chicken cook until done.  Add Chipotle peppers (***see instructions below), beans, broth and coconut milk and bring to a boil.  Add zest/lime juice.  Cover and let simmer for about, well honestly, as long as it takes for you to get everything else ready.  Prepare rice (about 4 cups at least), you could just prepare regular old rice OR you could continue out the flavor and whip up a batch of this...

Cilantro Lime Rice

Link to the recipe found here.

Before serving grab your seasonings and stark sprinkling and tasting and sprinkling and tasting till you get the flavor where you want it. That's the best I can tell you. Spices are rarely measured in my house!

To plate, or bowl rather, put about 1/3-1/2 cup rice in your bowl first. Rachel Ray taught me you don't actually want to put rice in soup or it will get too water logged so I do what Rachel says.  Then ladle your soup over the rice.  Mmmmmm.... Toppings!!! You get to top this beauty with a couple avocado slices, fresh cilantro and green onion and I used these:

But you could just use some crushed chips too! This soup was so good! Seriously.  Did I mention my children were inhaling it! And it makes a big pot so you could always do the work once and freeze 1/2 or it would be great for entertaining.  Me I am just looking way forward to the leftovers.  Want to see one more picture??

Nice right?

*** I owe you a little further explanation on the Chipotle Peppers in adobo sauce.  I have used these many times.  Sometimes I have made things WAY hotter than my kids could handle because I didn't "get" it.  Here I was reading recipes where it called for 2 cans and one pepper was nearly killing us with heat which sometimes left my kids crying that things were too spicy.  Then I found an awesome tutorial on how to handle them.  The link is here on one of my favorite food blogs.  Now I have a supply in my freezer, need to add some authentic heat, just take out one of my Red Hot Ice Cubes and I am good to go.  Check it out. For most recipes (like this one) I will only use one cube although honestly I probably could have done 2 but less is always safer when it comes to these hot n' spicy things. 

What to serve it with though? How about another twist on corn muffins. 

Cheesy Corn Dog Muffins

I was seeing these pop up all over Pinterest and everyone had elaborate made from scratch recipes and I was like, really? What I did above was elaborate enough! So I chose the easy route.  I took a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix and added the called for 1/3 cup milk and 1 egg and ADDED 1 cup of shredded Mexican cheese and 4 hot dogs cut into pieces. And it stretched the recipe too so it made like 10 muffins and these were AWESOME!!!!

Don't forget to serve with a dollop of ketchup and mustard for dipping! Yummy!!!

Finally we needed something sweet and fruity!
How about a refreshment?

Kid Friendly Sangria

1 qt CranRaspberry Juice
1 L Diet Ruby Red Squirt
1/3 cup of powdered lemonade
3 Tbsp lime juice
1 cup OJ
Tons of ice
Cut up fruit of your choice (we used cherries with juice, pineapple, strawberries and oranges) - this is awesome because at the bottom of your cup you have really juicy fruit salad too!

On a side note.  A few years ago we tried to sell our house and I made this punch for an open house and when we came back our realtor said we had no offers on the house but many requests for the punch recipe. It's a definite hit with the kiddos too, fun little festive touch!

So there you have it, another fiesta filled meal at my house, see it again all together!

Enjoy! One more Mexican meal to tell you about next time and a dessert that took my breath away! (Yeah that's how I feel about desserts!) Adios!