By New Year's 2021. The year turns and it feels like a prayer more than a celebration. Please let this year be different. Please let the vaccine reach my father before his heart takes another turn. Please let these kids have a school year that looks like a school year. You don't get to ask for all of this. You ask anyway.
Annual review. What 2020 gave me: more time with my children than any previous year, more cooking, the sourdough practice, video calls with Hector that I wouldn't have made as often without the pandemic forcing us all to the phone. What 2020 took: the fall season, the Friday nights, the ability to stand on a sideline with a crowd, any sense that the immediate future is knowable. What I kept: sobriety, marriage, the program, this kitchen.
I am four years sober. Not counting the years before that. Just counting forward, which is the right direction. Four years of waking up the person I meant to be the night before. Four years of making dinner instead of making excuses. Four years of coaching players through hard things partly because I know what hard things feel like from the inside. I don't perform this anniversary. I note it and move forward.
Made tamale soup again from Christmas leftovers — a tradition now. Lisa brought the pot to the table and said, "This is the meal where we make peace with the year ending." That's not a thing we said before. It's a thing she said this year. Now it will always be that thing. That's how family traditions work: someone says the right sentence once and it becomes permanent.
The tamale soup started as a practical thing—what do you do with the masa and filling left over from Christmas?—but once Lisa said that sentence about making peace with the year, it became something else entirely. This spiced-up, deeply warming soup is the version I come back to when I want that same feeling: heat from the spices, body from the broth, and the sense that a bowl of something honest can hold a lot of complicated gratitude. It’s the kind of recipe that earns its place on the table the way traditions do—not because someone planned it, but because it was right once and stayed.
Spiced Up Healthy Soup
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 medium carrots, sliced into rounds
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 can (15 oz) diced tomatoes, with juices
- 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can (15 oz) corn kernels, drained
- 5 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (adjust to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- Juice of 1 lime
- Fresh cilantro, for garnish
Instructions
- Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion and cook 4–5 minutes until softened. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
- Build the base. Add carrots, celery, and bell pepper to the pot. Cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to soften.
- Add spices. Sprinkle in cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, cayenne, and oregano. Stir well to coat the vegetables and toast the spices for about 1 minute.
- Add broth and tomatoes. Pour in the broth and diced tomatoes with their juices. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a steady simmer.
- Add beans and corn. Stir in the black beans and corn. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, allowing the flavors to deepen and the vegetables to become fully tender.
- Finish and season. Squeeze in the lime juice and taste for salt, pepper, and spice. Adjust as needed. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh cilantro.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 9g | Fat: 4g | Carbs: 36g | Fiber: 8g | Sodium: 420mg