Texican soup

If there's one thing that truely surprised me when I moved to the Chicago burbs was the Hispanic demographics. I'm from Cleveland. We have Italians and Irish, which are arguably much paler and much more angry than the pleasant little Mexicans that live here. Inarguably one of the biggest advantage of living amongst this subpopulation is that the grocery stores are chuck full of really unique produce (most of which I can't pronounce, but ALL of which I'm excited to try) that's at a really reasonable price. Although I rotate grocers depending on where I'm coming from, whenever I stop at a Hispanic grocer, I've been buying a "never-heard-of" item. Two weeks ago, it was nopales. This past week, it was chayote squash. Both I highly recommend if you get the chance to purchase them. Let me introduce you to the humble chayote:

Season: late spring

Taste: cross between and potato/cucumber/ and water chestnut

Nutritional Info: 

Texican Soup: 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 chayote squash
• 2 large roma tomatoes
• 1 T chopped garlic or 1 clove
• 1 red bell pepper, seeds discarded
• 2 large carrots (I steam mine for easier digestion)
• 1/2 packet taco seasoning
• 1 chick-un boullion cube
• 3 C hot water (i used the water from steaming the carrots)
• 1/2 T cumin
• 1/2 T red pepper flakes
• 1 t smoked paprika
• 4 sliced mushrooms
• optional: 
• handful of spinach
• corn
• avocado
• daiya pepperjack
• vegan sour cream
• black beans
• tortilla strips

Steps: 

1. chuck everything into vitamix except mushrooms, spinach, and/or "optionals"

2. blend until smooth (or chunky, whatever you like)

3. add mushrooms, pulse

4. add spinach, pulse (** I highly recommend doing this; I DIDN'T and it really messed with the whole "soup-vibe", but i really liked the added flavor)

5. pour into a big bowl

6. top with "optionals" if desired (you can see from the picture that I did not and it was amazing anyways, so they're not necessary to have a complete-tasting meal, just adds some extra texture)