Turkey Soup, Mexican style

CASE: I had this really great chicken soup at this Mexican restaurant that I really liked. It was a plain old chicken soup, brothy with few vegetables, but it was how they dressed it up that made it shine. They added fresh chopped onions, fresh chopped cilantro, lime wedges, advocado and warm flour tortillas to put into the soup. Spectacular. Really, spectacular.

Brandon was feeling sick on Christmas day, and so the next day I wanted to make him soup. We had brought home some ham and turkey from his parents' from Christmas day, so I decided to make him Turkey soup but with the nice extra stuff. This is so fabulous. Honestly, if you really don't have the interest or energy to do anything special for dinner, these simple side-ingredients really add interest and pizzazz (to use an eighties word) to rather boring soup.

TURKEY SOUP

STOCK
1 turkey leg, bone in
1 large slice of ham
1 onion (any kind)
2 large pieces of celery
salt to taste

Boil the above ingredients for at least 20 minutes in a can of water and a can of chicken stock. Fish out all the ingredients and then put back in just the turkey meat and ham.

SOUP
6 baby tomatoes chopped in half
2 stalks of celery, chopped in bite-sized rings
1 carrots, chopped in bites-sized half-moons
1/2 red onion chopped in bite-sized squares
5 large slices of turkey meat, chopped in...you guessed it...bite-sized pieces
To taste: red pepper flakes, paprika, pepper

Toss all the ingredients in the stock and bring to boil. No herbs in this dish.

SIDE INGREDIENTS:
Advocado
chopped onion
chopped cilantro
lime wedges

Serve with side ingredients so that each person can add to taste.

VERDICT: GUILTY! OF BEING DELICIOUS! It turned out great! He really liked it! He kept saying "Feed a cold, Starve a fever," over and over again which was driving me crazy. That is to say, since he had a fever he felt he should starve himself. I mean honestly, do you really think while you're sick that you should be starving yourself? Anyway, he did have a big bowl of this soup and it made me very, very happy that he was eating.