Mexican Rice Soup

One of my favourite things to do is invent new recipes - in particular, new soup recipes. These are easy and endlessly versatile. A week or so back, I riffed on a Quinoa Mexican Soup recipe to create an Italian Quinoa Soup. Today, I riffed on the original recipe still further to create Mexican Rice Soup.

It was delicious, so I'm doing something I rarely do: writing down the recipe, so that I can remember how I made it, and you can try it. Because I play fast and loose with food, ingredient amounts are approximate:

• 3 cups coarsely diced tomatoes (I used yellow tomatoes that I froze last summer)
• 2 oz mild green chilies 
• Half a red onion
• 1 green onion
• 1/4 tsp chopped garlic, from one of those glass jars in the refrigerator
• 1/2 cup brown rice
• 1 cup white beans
• Approx 3 cups of liquid (I used the water from defrosting the tomatoes, but chicken or vegetable cooking stock would work nicely if you're using canned tomatoes).
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp Spanish paprika
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/8 tsp cayenne
• 1/8 tsp coriander

Cook the onions and garlic in 1 TBSP olive oil until tender. Add the spices and stir until the onions and garlic are coated. Add the liquid, tomatoes, rice, and white beans; if it doesn't look like there's enough rice, add more rice (I was using leftover rice from my freezer). Add in the green chiles. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for 30 minutes or so. 

Serve with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. I also put chopped white cheddar cheese and some leftover avocado on my soup, along with a few blue corn crackers. Green onions or cilantro would also make a nice topping.