Easy recipe for a hearty, easy-to-make soup with authentic Mexican colors and ingredients: chick peas (garbanzo beans), potatoes, tomatoes, and delicious, nutritious cactus pieces.
Soups
Mexican Shrimp Soup (Caldo de camarón)
This flavor-packed shrimp soup, despite its ease of preparation and (mostly) ordinary ingredients, actually does full justice to the main ingredient. In Mexico it is considered one of a handful of dishes that are able to “bring the dead back to life”—which means easing the suffering caused by anything from a broken heart or just…
Easy Ham and Potato Chowder
Robin: If you’ve eaten baked ham for Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, you’ve participated in an American tradition with centuries-old roots in Europe. When I was a kid, we’d most often have turkey on these occasions at our house, since my mom (the one who cooked) had had more than her fill of hams during her…
Sonoran Cheese and Potato Soup (Caldo de queso y papa)
Robin: This lovely dish from northern Mexico is delightfully different from most other soups with similar ingredients. It contains potatoes, but is not thick; it calls for milk, but is not a cream soup, there is cheese in it, but the cheese does not melt. In fact, a fresh, white queso panela or queso fresco…
Mexican Meatball Soup (Caldo de albóndigas)
Robin: If there were a Nobel Prize for the dish most likely to take the chill out of the body and heal the wounds of the soul, this hearty Mexican soup would definitely be a finalist. Albóndigas (Spanish for meatballs, and made here with rice rather than bread crumbs) and vegetables come together in good-for-what-ails-you…
Lentil Soup
Robin: I learned to make this in Mexico, but very similar lentil dishes can be found all over Latin America, since it was the Spanish and Portuguese who brought this valuable, nutritious legume to our part of the world. In Mexico, lentil soup would probably be served in small portions as the first course to…
Turkey Broth (for Soup-making and Other Uses)
Robin: Please don’t discard the carcass left over after carving a roasted turkey; it is extremely valuable! Cooking the turkey’s “skeleton” will yield a rich, delicious broth that can be turned into soup or any one of a number of other yummy delights. Turkeys are native to all of North America, from Canada through Mexico,…
Autumn Vegetable Chili
Robin: Ed and I moved back to my native Indiana in the spring of 2022, but before that we’d lived several years in places (South Florida and Costa Rica) that don’t really get an autumn, and I missed that season most of all. I did my best to enjoy pretending to cycle through the four…
Basic Cream of Vegetable Soup
You can forget the canned stuff—you can easily make your own healthful, creamy soup with this recipe and the fresh veggies of your choice.