Salsa Black Bean Soup.

Salsa chicken & black bean soup was the second recipe picked for the winter cooking club chosen by my friend and soon to be mommy Allison. Holy guacamole this soup was delicious, like eat your weight in it delicious! You might have noticed that the recipe has the word 'chicken' in the title and that it's not in the title of the blog. That's because we were out of chicken, honestly I'm not even sure it was missed - it was pretty rockin' sans the chicken.

1) What kind of salsa did you use? Did you like it? I used Jose Madrid - Clovis Medium. I love their salsa!

2) Did you use canned or dry black beans? Canned, simply because I had them already.

3) What other changes did you make to the meal? I didn't use mushrooms, because I didn't think they fit. I also made it vegetarian, basically because we were out of chicken and I didn't want to buy any! My jar of salsa was also 12 oz instead of 16 oz. Next time I'd add two jars of salsa. When I served the soup I added: shredded sharp Cheddar cheese, dried cilantro, sour cream, chopped avocado & crushed tortilla chips.

4) After trying it once, what changes would you make next time? I think fresh cilantro added to the soup would have been really good. When I had my second bowl, I smashed up my avocado and I liked that a lot better & think smashed avocado mixed into the soup would be really good. Maybe a little lime juice.

5) Did you (and your family/DH) enjoy it? Yes, a lot! I love soup and black bean is one of my favorites!

6) Did you serve the soup with anything else? Just the additional add-ons.

7) Any other thoughts or comments you'd like to share? I'm super happy that I finally got to use my immersion blender in this soup. I've had it forever and for some reason just never used it, I think it might be my new favorite kitchen tool!


And if you have never checked out A Year of CrockPotting you need to do so, it's fantastic!

Fresh Vegetable Quesadillas

Still trying to get randomly caught up on my posts, so tonight wasn't really tonight and I'm also sorry about the poor picture quality, but I was hungry.

Tonight for dinner I made Martha's fresh vegetable quesadillas with corn relish and it did not disappoint! This recipe was posted awhile back in the other cooking group - we have two, based on when you grocery shop, etc. Ever since it was posted I've wanted to try it and I am so happy I finally got the chance tonight, since it was delicious! I am a huge fan of quick & healthy dinners to make during the week and this recipe fit the bill perfectly.

I only made a few minor changes to the recipe. I added cilantro to both the corn relish & the quesadillas instead of scallions and I used pepper jack cheese instead of monterary jack. Oh and I did use a red pepper instead of an orange one, but that's not a big deal. The husband has a thing about eating cooked vegetables that are crunchy, so he put his squash & red pepper in foil packets and grilled them first. These were even good as leftovers the next day, though obviously not as crispy since they were cooked in the microwave.