October's Cover - Tortilla Meatball Soup

Well, Cooking Light made it after all with their Tortilla Meatball Soup.  When I got my October copy, I wasn't too enamored by the soup on the cover, but two of my other magazines featured front porches and the pork roast on Bon Appetit seemed a little out of my league and budget.

When I looked more closely at the soup I saw that it had the potential to be a kid favorite. It has some elements of our favorite - chicken tortilla soup - and it has meatballs. Win win? Not so much.

It was fun to make - not quite the "five hour (blank)" that we have become accustomed to but enough steps to take about 2 hours. The large amount of onion and corn that it called for made it come out pretty sweet in the end. Roasting the bell peppers added to the sweetness. I should have added more chipotle peppers to the meatballs to kick up the heat, but it's really hard to judge seasoning in raw meat. I used to actually taste the hamburger I was seasoning when I was a kid . . . before we were as well informed as we are now. Can you believe that? But I digress . . .

The soup is good, but more sweet than spicy. The chunks of veggies in it make you feel all healthy as you are eating it. But my kids are purist. They like their tortilla soup to taste like our old standby and their meatballs to have spaghetti under them.

Here's the tortilla soup recipe and Grandma Prusa's meatball recipe, maybe they will become your standby's too.

Grandma Prusa's Meatballs
Chicken Tortilla Soup