Hominy Soup

Vince started working at The Bike Shop a few years ago and we have met some great people because of it. One of Vince's coworkers, Andy, is kind of like his best friend. They work together 40 hours a week yet still want to hangout after work.

We used to go to dinner all the time at Andy and Lindens {Andy's wife, who also works at the bike shop}. One of the first meals they cooked us was a hominy and veggie soup and it BLEW MY MIND. I love it, and it's definitely one of my favorite meals, both to make and eat.

For some reason, cutting vegetables is so soothing to me, especially when they're soft like yellow squash or zucchini. I've gotten pretty good at cutting food up super quickly and never having to lift the knife off the cutting board, and because the soft veggies are super easy to do, I feel like a speedy pro!

When Vince and I asked Linden for the recipe, she said there wasn't one. She rattled off a few main ingredients, and then said add any veggies you want. Here's my version of the recipe and the veggies that I put into it. I also add chicken, which they didn't since they are vegetarian.

Hominy Soup

Serving Size: 6

1 yellow squash

1 zucchini

1 bell pepper {red, orange or yellow}

2 boneless chicken breasts

1 bunch green onion {or 1 yellow onion}

1/2 cup cilantro

1-2 jalapeno {optional}

3 whole carrots

3-4 cups canned hominy

2 cans crushed tomatoes

1-2 cups chicken broth {depending on how soupy you like it}

salt/pepper

Cut up yellow squash, zucchini, bell pepper, and chicken breast into bite size pieces and throw into a large soup pan. Chop up green onion, cilantro, jalapeno and carrots; add to pan. Add hominy, canned tomatoes, chicken broth and spices; heat pan on medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn down to medium heat and let simmer about 40 minutes, or until chicken is throughly cooked. Top with sour cream to cool down the spice and a sprig of cilantro.

As a substitue for jalapeno, I love to put on Tony's Creole Seasoning. I already told you I put it on my eggs, but it's so good on everything!

One variation that Vince and I did was put rice in the soup and it turned out pretty good. Leftovers weren't as good though because the 4 cups of cooked rice soaked up all the juices and it was more like a mush than soup. I would recommend only 1-2 cups cooked rice.

One way I save money for this soup is using huge cans of hominy that has like 16 cups. It's only like $3 a can, versus $2 for the small 2-cup can. After I open the big can, I just freeze the leftovers in Ziploc bags. The only thing I use hominy for is soup, so I put 3-4 cups in each bag.

When I'm making soup I just take the bag out and put the chunk of hominy in the soup, not even worrying about defrosting. The hominy falls apart pretty quickly and doesn't mess with the cooking time too much.