It is very cold outside in Southern Illinois and that mean's it is time for soup. It may be TIME for soup, but I don't have time to make soup today, so I settled for this simple recipe. My husband had favorite recipes he called "cup - a - cup - a"! What that generally meant was that we just added a cup of this ... and a cup of that. This is definitely one of those recipes! The best news ... It takes about 20 minutes to make and it tastes like it has simmered all day.
You begin by combining 1 quart of chicken stock (I prefer homemade, but the kind in a box is second best) with a can of Rotel tomatoes with chili peppers, a can of corn and a can of cannellini beans (or regular red kidney beans). Bring all that to a slow boil and drop in about 2 cups of cooked chicken or turkey (You can also use left over pork for this). Season with salt, pepper, a little minced garlic and chopped cilantro. If you want more spice, add chipotle pepper. Reduce to a simmer.
After this simmers about ten minutes, make a thickener by adding 1/4 cup flour to about 1/2 a cup of the broth. Whisk that together until it is smooth and add it back to the soup pot. Add the can of green enchilada sauce and simmer a few more minutes. Last step is to add a cup of shredded cheese ... I used chipotle cheddar this time! You can also add one or two cups of half and half at this point, if you'd like a creamier version.
Here's the soup topped with corn chips and more shredded cheese! Notice those delicious looking biscuits beside the soup? Those start with Angel Biscuit dough.
Angel Biscuits
5 c. self-rising flour
1 tbsp. sugar
2 pkg. yeast
1 tsp. soda
1 c. Wesson oil
2 c. buttermilk
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup of warm water. I do that in the bottom of my mixing bowl. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 cup vegetable oil, 2 cups buttermilk and 5 cups of flour. I use the kneading bar on my mixer and just let it work for about 5 minutes. Put this in the refrigerator sealed in a bag and use it as you want to. It will keep for two weeks and you can bake one biscuit at a time, if you'd like! Otherwise, it makes about 48 biscuits. Bake these at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Remember, the yeast makes it grow in the refrigerator ... so leave room in your container or bag for expansion!
Don't limit the use to biscuits, though. You can make doughnuts with it ... just fry them in oil and dredge them in cinnamon and sugar; turn it into pizza crust by pressing firmly in a pan using your fingers dipped in olive oil .. top it and bake it; use it for monkey bread ... savory or sweet; make herbed biscuits with it; turn larger portions into miniature loaves of bread; or roll it out and turn it into cinnamon rolls. Oh, and you can use it to top homemade chicken pie ... or drop portions into bubbling broth for delicious dumplings. ... and ... if you love fruit drop dumplings, it is perfect for that. Just drop small portions into lightly boiling fruit juice.
This time, I mixed shredded chipotle cheese and chopped cilantro with enough dough to make six little biscuits. I added a pat of butter on top of each biscuit and sprinkled with Mexican oregano before baking. Doesn't get much easier.
I'll be sharing this with a few food blog parties and hope you'll click through to look at some of the other posts! Make sure you check out my home page to see all my other recent posts ... and try to stay warm with a good bowl of soup!
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