One of the things I love having for dinner before it gets too hot is soup.
When my dad was alive and living with me, he did the cooking because he enjoyed it, and he was good at it. Me? I hate cooking. I get bored, wander away, and up with stuff burned to the bottom of my pans.
I really, really missed my dad's Tortilla Soup with Chorizo and Turkey Meatballs. It was a recipe I found at Cooking Light back years ago. A search of their site didn't turn it up, but I found a blogger who has the recipe posted and linked to that site for you.
As much as I wanted the soup, it seemed like too much work. Like was I really going to make turkey meatballs? No. But a friend told me there was premade turkey meatballs available at the store. Okay, call me stupid, but it never occurred to me that they sold premade turkey meatballs. I knew they did premade beef meatballs, but turkey?
My ignorance ties into something else I hate. Grocery shopping. Ugh! I make a list, I run in and buy what is on this list, and I get the heck out of there ASAP. I've since learned that a lot of ADHD people (like me!) do not like grocery shopping or cooking. With my get-in-get-out mindset, I don't do any exploring.
With the knowledge that I didn't have to make my own meatballs, that I could buy pre-chopped onion, and that the only thing I would have to prepare would be the poblano pepper (it's mild!), I headed off to buy what I needed to make my favorite soup.
The premade turkey meatballs worked great. They weren't as good as homemade, but since I'm not making my own, it was good enough. The prechopped onion was also most awesome. I hate cutting up onion. I tossed everything in a big soup pot, added all my ingredients and let it cook for about half an hour to make sure the premade meatballs were hot.
Shock of all shocks, I actually made a good soup!
I added more corn kernels and tortillas than the recipe called for because both items were getting a little old and needed to be used up. I also added a lot more chicken stock than the recipe called for because I wanted more soup. And after I had a bowl, I added even more stock and seasoning so I would have lots and lots of soup.
The biggest issue I had was that I couldn't find things. The kitchen was always my dad's space, and he set it up in a way that worked for him. For example, before he moved in with me, I had my spices setup in an organized, alphabetized order so I could locate them.
My dad liked the spices he used all the time in front and everything else shoved in the back of the cabinet haphazardly. I needed ground coriander for the recipe. Could I find it? No. Do I own any? I assume I must since my dad always made the soup. Did he skip the coriander? Maybe. That means I might not own any. When I have a little time, I'll have to take out all the spices, inventory them, and reorganize for me.
At least I was able to find my big soup pot and the ladle.
