Suzy Soup

Recently some friends invited us over for dinner.  It was great fun!!!  They made a delicious dinner (dessert to be reviewed at a later date) AND shared a recipe for a soup that they make using all Trader Joe’s ingredients!

Well, of course we had to try that out!!!  So we collected ingredients and set out to make what I have decided should be called SUZY SOUP.  Yes, I know that Suzy and Rob, the friends who had us over for dinner, like to call it Tortilla Soup, but they are wrong.  In our house it will henceforth be known as SUZY SOUP.

Wanna make it?  It is, as Suzy told me, “Easy peasy lemon squeezy!”.   Here is how to make it:

Ingredients

1 can black beans, drained (reviewed here)
1 can corn, drained (reviewed here)
1 box chicken broth (reviewed here)
1 jar Trader Joe’s Double Roasted Salsa (this was our first time having this product!)
Chicken (boneless, skinless) – sautéed

Combine all ingredients listed above in a pot to heat (after sautéing the chicken)

Can't you almost SMELL it cooking???

Now here is the fun part!

Fill little bowls with:

grated jack cheese
cilantro
sliced avocados
sour cream (or Suzy says you can use plain yogurt but we were too scared to try that)
tortilla chips (we used our favorite Blue Corn Chips (reviewed here)
chopped onion (we got crazy and added this!)
chopped tomato (again, Suzy didn’t tell us to have this, but it made the soup amazing!)

Then let everyone fill their bowl with Suzy Soup and top with whatever toppings from the little bowls they would like!!  (Of course, at our house, we each put in EVERYTHING!)

We were so excited to EAT Suzy Soup that I forgot to take a photo until my bowl was nearly empty... 

SERIOUSLY good soup.  Perfect for cold winter nights.  Super easy to make yet somehow looks fancy!

The only downside I can think of is that when you are done with dinner you not only have SOUP BOWLS to wash, you have lots of tiny bowls that were filled with toppings to clean, too.  But that is a small price to pay for such a delicious meal.  David reports that one other downside is that it is so tasty, that SOME PEOPLE (editor’s note – there was a bit of guilt in his voice when he reported this…) might eat TOO MUCH and then go to bed with a very full belly and have a hard time sleeping… 

I CAUGHT HIM eating a second (or third??) helping!!

The recipe made more than the 2 of us could eat but it was GREAT as leftovers.  I can’t really list a PRICE here, because it depends on what topping ingredients you buy.  But it is not expensive to make.

Rating - 5

Day 202 - Black Beans

A can of black beans is a can of black beans, right?  I mean, how SUPERB or CRAPPY can a can be?  Maybe I just have never bought a super bad brand of black beans.

That being said, these are fine black beans. :)  They are black.  They are beany.  They are good.  As I have mentioned in previous reviews of canned vegetables on this blog, before buying Trader Joe’s brand, I always thought I “needed” to stick with name brand canned vegetables.  I clipped coupons and bought them on sale.  But now that I know TJ’s are just as good as the fancy name brand vegetables that pay for advertising (and coupons!), I will stick to TJ’s!

Not only are they tasty, they are an excellent source of fiber (insert fart joke here)

I served these over rice and topped with chopped green pepper, chopped onion, chopped tomato, and sliced avocado.  YUMMMMMM.  I added salt, pepper, and Tabasco to mine.  Sometimes I do the black beans over rice and kale (also with Tabasco) and that is also a really tasty meal.

See those black beans hiding under all of those tasty toppings???

If you have never tried a store brand canned vegetable, do it.  Cheaper and just as reliable. 

Price - .89

Rating - 4

Day 135 - Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce

Can you say, “Really tasty, healthy dinner that is easy to cook”??  If so, then you should try this Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce!  We had it for dinner last night and it was excellent.

This is the jar you want to get

Here is how we prepared dinner with it: 

1.        Sliced up some mushrooms

2.       Sliced some green pepper

3.       Sliced some onion

4.       Sautéed those

5.       Sliced some thin chicken breasts

6.       Sautéed that

7.       Poured some of the curry simmer sauce on the chicken, let it heat up

8.       Added the veggies into the pan

9.       Simmer, sauté, simmer

10.   Served over rice (also from Trader Joe’s, review to come soon)

We added a side of snow peas (which matched our plates!)

See how easy?  And healthy?  I know, you can’t see how YUMMY it was, but you should make some yourself to experience that.  The sauce is really tasty but not super spicy.  All we added was freshly ground salt and pepper!  And the price is really good, too, the nutritional info label says it is 6 servings and that seems about right for what we ate last night.

The sign says it is complicated to make, but TJ's has taken all the complication out of it for you!

I am looking forward to dinner tonight, because I know it is going to be leftovers of this stuff! 

Price – $2.49

Rating – 4.75

Day 79 - Uttapam with Coconut Chutney

These could change their name to “Blandapam with Coconut Chutney”.  Bleck.

There are 4 uttampam (rice bread) with onions and cilantro in the box.  Two cooking techniques are listed:  microwaving or heating in a pan on the stove.  The first time we tried them we did the microwave technique because we were HUNGRY and wanted to eat.  The result was an unsatisfactory dinner.  The bread was WARM but not GOOD.  It was super bland and the texture was odd.

Don't they look yummy in the photo on the box??

But before writing a review and saying something negative, I decided we should cook the other two uttapam a different night using the stove technique.  I hoped that result would be tastier.   And, while it is true that the result was tastier, it was not TASTY…

Even cooking on the stove, it was all just too bland.  The coconut chutney could not add enough “pizzazz” to save this.  I am disappointed, because the photo on the box looked so good and I had high hopes! 

Even at this low price, these are not worth it for us

We won’t be buying these again.

Price – $2.49

Rating - 2

Day 34 - Asian Vegetable Stir Fry

This is not the type of thing we normally buy – pre-cut veggies all set to stir fry.  For us, a big part of the “fun” and deliciousness of cooking is the prep – chopping, measuring, etc.  And paying extra for someone else to do the prep work just seems silly, especially when we actually ENJOY that stuff.  But, for the sake of the blog, we bought this to see how it was.

Find this in the produce section

First off, it was not expensive when you consider all the stuff packed into it:  green peppers, broccoli, red peppers, white onions, snap peas, snow pea pods, bamboo shoots, bok choy, baby corn, mushrooms, red onions, carrots, and water chestnuts.  That is a ton of veggies for a stir fry!  When you are a household of two (as we are) and make a stir fry from scratch, you buy all those veggies and use little bits of each, leaving lots of half eaten veggies in the fridge.  So the idea of all of this variety in one pack was actually pretty appealing.  The package recommended cooking the veggies with a meat or tofu, and we almost never cook tofu, so we thought, “What the heck!” and did it with tofu (which will be reviewed on another day).

Veggie stir fry in action - in the wok

Packaging close up

Impressions – for me, the stir fry had a surprising lack of flavor.  I am not sure how all of those delicious vegetables could be mixed up together and the end result have LESS flavor than any of the individual veggies on their own…  I thought the whole point was that the WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS…  Even the onions were mild.  I wish the mix would have included some GARLIC – that might have livened things up.  We made it in a wok using Extra Virgin Olive Oil and soy sauce, but perhaps we should have added our own garlic.  After eating a couple of bites, I added sriracha sauce to mine to give it some pep. 

The label says it is “about 6 servings” – for us (two tiny people) it was TWO SERVINGS.  I guess if you eat like a Cabbage Patch Doll, it would be 6 servings. 

Price – $3.99

Rating – 2.75