Sopa de Fideo

The lovely Susan Berkson from the Minneapolis Farmers Market put out a call for recipes for inexpensive, family style meals on the Minnesota Fortify food community page. Initially, my instinct was to pull a recipe from my blog, and just hand it over to her. After all, I don't usually use extremely exotic ingredients, and I am definitely not a fancy cook.

But then I started thinking about a food drive we had at work recently, and how sometimes when you have limited income, you rely more on canned goods, dried pastas, and things that can be easily stored. Then, I set about creating a dish that could rely more on those items, and less on fresh. This one combines both, and is super affordable ! After I did the calculations, this will make eight really healthy sized portions for roughly $0.85 each! Even I was shocked ! And, you could replace the meat with canned beans and save even more money.

So, this is loosely based on a recipe from an old church cookbook I have in my collection, and it is also one contributed to the book by a dear family friend. I hope you like it, I know when I made it for my husband, he ate three bowls of it !

Sopa de Fideo

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 pound vermicelli noodles, broken into one inch pieces

1 pound ground beef

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups celery, finely sliced

2 cups onions, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup green pepper

1 small jalapeno, minced (optional, but adds nice heat)

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes

1 1/2  cups water

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons chili powder
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
In a large dutch oven, melt butter. Saute vermicelli until golden brown. Add ground beef, and cook over medium heat until meat is completely browned. Add all remaining ingredients except for cheese, and gently stir. Cover, reduce heat to simmer and simmer for 25-35 minutes until vegetables are tender. Serve topped with cheese.