Kid Vs. Produce

We picked up a softball sized jicama at the store this last week, and my initial plan was to make some sort of chopped salad. The Boy, however, was running low on patience for all the weird combos we’ve been churning out, so I though, hey, let’s make a simple chicken soup.  See, a long time ago I made a chicken soup that featured fire roasted red bell peppers pureed and added to a rich chicken broth, flavored with garlic, cilantro and lime juice, with grilled chicken and cubed jicama added in the final minutes.

I figured I could just make something like that, except I couldn’t recall where I had the recipe.  (I’ve since found it, and it’s a winner – I’ll be making the real recipe in coming days.)

What follows is my attempts to wing it.  Duck and cover, people, because this gets really wrong, really fast.

A quick gander in the fridge and pantry revealed no red peppers.  No fresh ones, no jarred ones.  What?  I always have a bunch of red peppers.  Oh well.  I know!  We’ll use the one green bell pepper I’ve got in the crisper.  That will totally be just the same!  (Um, no.)

Okay, so here’s what we started out with:

1 green bell pepper

a handful of cilantro

two garlic cloves

half an onion

a softball-sized jicama, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes

Not pictured, but all up in this soup:  4 large chicken breast halves, skinless and boneless and a box of chicken broth.  Oh, and some lemon juice, because as we all know, lemon juice is exactly the same as lime juice.  (No, it isn’t.)

So, first step in Operation Southwestern Soup was pulling out my grill pan, and tossing in the pepper, onion and garlic.  I “grilled” them over high heat.  I also didn’t get pictures of me searing the chicken breasts, but I did that too, and then put them in a foil covered pan in the oven to finish cooking while I messed with the veggies.

The chicken was chopped into cubes to be added to the broth at the end with the jicama cubes.

The Boy surfaced for long enough to help me puree the peppers, onions and garlic.  The problem was when we took the lid off of the ‘Ja, and the onion assulted our senses.  We used way, way too much onion, and there was no turning back.

Brainstorm:  add some tomatoes!  (Uh, okay…)  Into the grill pan went a handful of cherry tomatoes.  I was feeling pretty confident that this was a great idea.

Once they started oozing, we dumped them in with the pepper mixture.

It did diffuse the intense onion craziness, but it looked sort of grody.  Oh well, no stopping this train now.  We’re on the soup express!  Into the broth!  In the pan went the broth, the puree and the chopped cilantro and about a tablespoon of lemon juice, and I simmered it for about 15 minutes.

Right before serving, I tasted it and decided it needed more acid.  More lemon juice, to the rescue!  Then I added two of the four chicken breasts (reserving two for another dish, another day) and the cut up jicama, and warmed through.  And then in an orgy of self-doubt, I threw in a handful of frozen corn kernels.

The verdict:  The Boy ate a bite and then gave me a stink-face.  The Chef and Sous Chef were both picking out the chicken and jicama and eating it, but poo-pooed the broth.  My husband ate a few bites and then pushed his serving around in his bowl.

I ate my whole serving, but was grateful I hadn’t made enough for left-overs.  Recipes.  Use them, Jenny.  Gah.