chicken tortilla soup

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed last week and came across a blog post by my bariatric surgeon.  I took a peek at the recipes that were posted and found this recipe for soup.

I'm not much of a soup eater.  I don't feel as though it fills me.  I used to like it when I first had surgery, because it was easy and the warmth was easy on the new stomach.  But nowadays I really have to be in the mood for it. Plus, as a gastric bypass patient, this kind of qualifies as drinking with my meal.  And that's something I'm not supposed to be doing; it can stretch out the new stomach by forcing more food through it, and it washes my food down faster, which leads to hunger faster.  I decided to make it, though, because wanted to use up some ingredients.  No, strike that.  I wanted to use ONE ingredient:  a little 4 ounce can of chopped green chilies. (I bought it at some point and never used it.  I don't even remember what recipe I wanted to make.  I have lots of stuff like that in my cabinets.) I had all the other ingredients except enchilada sauce, which was easy enough to buy. Conveniently, it used up the open carton of chicken broth haunting my fridge, as well as the black beans I was likely holding onto for another recipe I can't remember. Oh, and I finally finished up the bag of frozen corn!  OK, so maybe I had more ingredients I needed to use up.

This was super easy.  Just chop up the onion and dump everything in the crock pot.  Viola!  Dinner is ready when you get home from work.

I liked the way it tasted. Just a little spicy, but not much.  If I make it again, I might reduce the amount of broth, but that's just because I prefer something more like a stew.

If you're interested in the recipe, you can find it here:  Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup

The nutritional information is posted on his website, but here it is.  Note:  This assumes 8 regular-sized portions.  Bariatric patients will likely get at least 12 out of this, depending upon how far along they are.  This recipe fills a large crock pot.

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 8
• Amount Per Serving- about 2 cups
• Calories: 168.6

• Total Fat: 2.5 g
• Cholesterol: 35.0 mg
• Sodium: 311.2 mg
• Total Carbs: 20.3 g
• Dietary Fiber: 4.2 g
• Protein: 17.4 g

Source: SparkPeople