This is a sponsored post by Hunt’s tomatoes. All opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands I love that make this blog possible.
For a few years now, I’ve made it a habit to create meatless meals for my family a few times a week. I like to keep canned fruits and vegetables in my pantry because that just makes it easier to get creative on a whim and create a meal that everyone will enjoy.
Choosing high quality, canned ingredients, will give me peace of mind when I cook and serve meals to my family. Lately, I’ve grown accustomed to read labels meticulously and do research on new products I plan to cook with. I want to know where they come from, how they are harvested, cooked and packaged.
As a Hunt’s Ambassador, I was pleased to find out that Hunt’s® tomatoespeels their tomatoes with FlashSteam, which uses steam from simple hot water. Some companies peel their tomatoes using chemicals like *lye, which is generally recognized as safe by the FDA and has no adverse affects on the healthfulness of tomatoes. That being said, I like to make sure mine are not peeled with chemicals by looking for the FlashSteam seal like the one on my Hunt’s tomatoes can below.
As part of my meatless menu, I’ve developed a recipe that includes seasonal vegetables and natural spices. Chayote is a great, kid friendly vegetable that resembles a potato but tastes like zucchini squash. I’ve also added cracked hominy corn because it reminds me of those meatless soups my mom used to prepare for me as a child. The key ingredient is a nice amount of canned tomatoes, or tomato sauce to give it that delicious tanginess of a brothy tomato soup spiced by hints of guajillo dried chile peppers. By using Hunt’s FlashSteamed tomatoes in my soup, I am giving my family a mouthwatering meal that’s free of lye chemicals and full of simple, natural ingredients.
Ingredients
- 6 dried guajillo chiles, tops and seeds removed
- 8 cups chicken broth, unsalted (or vegetable broth)
- 2 garlic cloves
- ½ cup onion, roughly chopped
- 14 ounces Hunt’s Whole Peeled Plum Tomatoes, or 1 (15 ounce) can Hunt’s Organic Tomato Sauce
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 chayotes, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup cracked hominy corn
- cilantro for garnish
Instructions
- Reserve ½ guajillo dried chile. Slice thinly and set aside for garnish.
- In a 6-quart stock pot, combine dried chiles, broth, garlic and onion. Heat over medium heat for 10 minutes. Transfer to a blender container, add tomatoes (or tomato sauce) and blend in batches until smooth.
- Return mixture to stock pot and heat over medium heat. Add bay leaves, chayote and cracked hominy corn and bring to a boil. Decrease heat to medium low and cooked COVERED for 25 minutes or until hominy corn is al dente.
- Remove bay leaves and serve. Garnish with cilantro sprigs and reserved dried chile strips.
* Lye peeling is generally recognized as safe by the FDA and has no adverse effects on the healthfulness of tomatoes.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Hunt’s Tomatoes.
