Not your usual way to use up chilli con carne leftovers...
I'm a big fan of chilli con carne with ALL the trimmings (I mean, about half a tub of soured cream and enough Cheddar to fill the gorge). And usually, once we've devoured our body weight in it, we have some left over - but not quite enough to be two more portions, which would be an obvious accompaniment to baked spuds (with more soured cream and cheese, natch), so I thought I'd make some soup out of it. You know, that sort of autumn/harvest sort of soup. The pumpkin spiced latte of soups.
You will need:
Leftover chilli con carne - I will put up a recipe for it one day. Weight? I'd hazard 500g?
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Handful frozen/tinned sweetcorn
1 chopped courgette (probably a small one, I used a section of one of our mammoth ones left over from the glut - see Courgette Soup)
Coriander
Soured cream
Wedge of lime/lime juice
Served with cheese scones with melted cheesy topping...
I started by making a little soured cream 'drizzle' for the top of the soup. This was incredibly easy and I used the little (but scarily named) Kenwood Chopper - see picture. I plopped in a couple of table spoons of soured cream and added a few stalks and leaves of coriander and the juice squeezed from a quarter of a lime. Whizz, whizz, job done.
Next I put the leftover chilli into a large saucepan with a tin of chopped tomatoes and the tin then refilled with water and added in too (therefore cleaning out the tin too - happy recycling!). Pop the hob on medium-high and mix it all together BUT before it starts to get too hot, give it a whizz with a stick blender. I did this because I felt there was something odd about just having sloppy meat sauce as a soup and it needed to be more blended. I love mince, it's a brilliant way of cheaply buying good beef, but there is something slightly sinister about seeing bits of meat floating around in your bowl. Plus, chunkier items were to come...
As the blitzed sauce/soup came to the simmer, I added in a handful of frozen sweetcorn and some chopped courgette. These gave the soup that chunkiness that the blitzing, though satisfying, had removed. Then it was just a simmering waiting game for the courgette to cook.
While it was cooking I did a bit of chopping for the garnishes and then had a brainwave about making some cheese-topped cheese scones - because cheese is amazing. I already had the cheese scones (thanks hangover shopping last weekend) and just finely chopped some spring onions and a few cherry tomatoes and placed them on top of the scones (which had had a little hot holiday to the toaster), with some President grated cheese over the top, acting like a cheesy duvet, tucking the little veggies in. These went into the oven, 200C (standard), for a few mins.
Once the soup was done I simply split it between two HUGE bowls (we are GLUTTONS - I call them our 'feasting bowls') and topped with the soured cream dressing and some fresh coriander. Then got the cheese scones out of the oven and 'plated up' (I sound like I'm some sort of Masterchef wannabe).
Variations
I mean, you could do all sorts of things - use passata rather than chopped tommies, or use up spaghetti bolognese left overs rather than chilli and then just add some cumin and spices to make it warming and spicy. Also some chopped avocado on top would be amazing.