This week, I introduced Organic Authority’s Cooking School, focusing on:
When You Can’t Find Organic Ingredients…
Homemade Organic Tortilla Strips
Cooking with Organic Dried Beans
Hot Trend: Organic Chili Peppers

Now you’re ready to create the special tomato and mushroom soup that incorporates the week’s lessons. Note: Because you follow an organic lifestyle, Organic Authority recommends using certified organic ingredients, when available, in all recipes to minimize your risk of exposure to pesticides, chemicals and preservatives.

Latin Tomato and Huitlacoche Soup

Hot, corny, spicy and thick with beans, this soup satisfies all those south-of-the-border cravings in one lusty dish. If you can’t find huitlacoche (weet-la-coach-aye), use sautéed portobello mushrooms.

1/2 cup dried black beans soaked or 1½ cups drained canned black beans
6 cups light chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup shredded cooked chicken meat
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/2 cup fresh or canned tomato puree
4 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced, green and white parts kept separate
One large Anaheim chili, with or without seeds, or other chili, stemmed and thinly sliced
1/2 cup (2 ounces) huitlacoche, fresh or frozen (see note, below) or 3 cups cubed portobello caps (about 4 ounces)
1 tablespoon olive oil (as needed)
1/2 cup (loosely packed) fresh cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
One recipe Homemade Organic Tortilla Strips

1. Place the beans in a small saucepan of simmering water. Cook, uncovered, until tender, about 45 minutes. Add hot water, if necessary, to keep the beans well submerged. Drain the beans.
2. Combine the stock, meat, corn, tomato puree, whites of scallion, chili and beans in a medium-size sauce pan over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Stir in the huitlacoche. (If using portobellos, sauté them in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat, until the mushrooms give up their liquid. Remove from the heat and add to the soup.) Add the cilantro, lime juice and scallion greens, and simmer for 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Serve hot, sprinkling some of the tortillas strips over each bowl of soup.

Note
Huitlacoche (Mexican corn fungus) is available canned, frozen and occasionally fresh, in different size pieces. Frozen huitlacoche is preferable because it retains a better texture than canned. When chopped, huitlacoche darkens dishes to which it is added; to minimize the darkening of this soup, choose small, peanut-sized huitlacoche, which can be added to the soup whole, or slightly larger pieces that will only need to be cut in half before adding them to the soup. Larger pieces, which will have to be chopped or cut several times to make the proper size pieces, will darken the soup more.

Recipe reprinted with permission from The Mushroom Lover’s Mushroom Cookbook and Primer, by Amy Farges, © 2000, Workman Publishing Company, Inc., New York. All rights reserved.