Sent from my BlackBerry! hurray

Yes, I know it’s actually the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, but my God, that’s a glaring oversight on the part of Corporate America™. It should SO be the Salsa Bowl. What is a Fiesta Bowl anyway? Actually, this soup might be one…

It’s in a tomato-cilantro base but would also make up well with canned diced tomatoes, or if you are one of those peculiar humans with an antipathy towards cilantro you could substitute a neutral green like chard or spinach. Cilantro is the “green” in this soup; one full bunch is not a typo!

1/4 cup olive oil
1 cooking onion in 1/8″† dice
1 fresh jalapeno, minced finely
3 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 medium zucchini in 1/4″ dice
1 red bell pepper in 1/4″ dice
Sea salt and fresh black pepper
1/2 tsp. ancho chili powder
1/2 tsp. whole cumin
1 package frozen corn OR 4 or 5 cobs’ worth of fresh corn kernels
1 small can black beans, drained and thoroughly rinsed
1 bunch cilantro, some stems reserved for garnish, the rest chopped finely
1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
3 “chicken” bouillon cubes
Couple of splashes of Bragg’s
3 bay leaves

In a large soup pot heat olive oil on medium high. Add onion, jalapeno, garlic, bell pepper, zucchini, ancho chili powder and cumin; season with salt and pepper. Saute for about 7 minutes, until onion is translucent and pot-bottom is dry when scraped with a wooden spoon [You may need to turn the heat up; the veggies‡ should be cooking pretty briskly. Stir often!!]

Add corn and black beans; stir to cover and continue cooking, stirring regularly, until heated through. Add canned crushed tomatoes and water to fill the soup pot about 1″ shy of the top. Throw in Bragg’s, bouillon cubes and bay leaves; give it a stir, cover and heat until boiling, then reduce heat and simmer for at least half an hour. Serve with fresh cilantro sprigs, whole-grain toast and maybe even a bit of Monterey Jack grated on top if you’re into that kind of thing.

†Confession:  It should come as no surprise to my friends and readers that I scored pretty high in the online Asperger’s Disorder test [a 32, where 35 is a confirmed diagnosis].  So I am coming at this vegetable cutting thing in a very organized, some might say even frighteningly specific way:  I take the size of the ingredient I can’t change [in this case, corn and beans] and cut the other vegetables so that they are basically the same size.  [M interjects that this is pretty typical culinary technique] So far, so good, right?  BUT!  But.  Then you scale down slightly to find the size of yer onion-cutting.  Because if I find cooked onions that are bigger than any other item in a soup or mixed vegetable dish, I have to wash my hands thrice and turn around counterclockwise before I eat it.  No, not really, but I do pick them out and I don’t like it I DON’T LIKE IT.  There, now you have it.

‡I’ve made this soup as a base for tons of different veggie combinations:  yams, celery, other peppers or squashes.  I toyed with putting in 1/2 cup of dried quinoa at the bouillon-adding stage but since the broth was so pretty I chose not to.  If you love quinoa and are needing to increase the ol’ whole-grain intake, give it a whirl and let me know how it goes.

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