Sometimes, my soul needs soup.

I spent very minimal time thinking about food over the past seven days. Almost every morning, I was snacking on a granola bar, packing myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch and then rushing out the door to get to work. A busy work day would then ensue.

About eight(ish) hours later, I would arrive back home completely drained and ready to fall over. And, I needed to eat again, unfortunately. Each day, I would either convince my husband to eat takeout, or I would cook something simple, with maybe 20 minutes of effort. Then, when I was done eating and washing the dishes, I would fall into bed.

Eight(ish) hours later, I would wake up and do it all again. Wash, rinse and repeat.

Which is why, when I finally made it to Sunday morning, I knew I needed soup.

Soup is one of my favorite things to make. It doesn’t take a lot of effort. All it really takes is time and a good relationship with your slow cooker. But at the end, you have a warm, filling meal.

Plus, putting your hands around a hot bowl of soup just does something to your synapses that no other food can do, especially since we’ve had so many gray and rainy days lately. I have no scientific proof to back up this statement, but soup makes brains and souls happy.

While still tucked into bed, I ended up searching for soup recipes on my phone. I knew if I was going to make soup, I’d need to try a new recipe, since my husband isn’t a particular fan of the food genre (I know. I know. Who doesn’t like soup? But everyone has their flaws, I suppose).

But I found this Mexican Chicken Soup recipe for a slow cooker on Food Network, and I thought it may just tempt him to see the error of his ways.

And I saw it only had a five hour cook time. I pitched it to him, and he skeptically agreed to try it.

Then, I rolled back over in bed and got another hour of sleep before church. My brain needed it.

Later in the day, I made a trip to the grocery store for the fresh produce, the canned tomatoes and the chipotle pepper in adobo. When I got home, I really enjoyed the process of slowly chopping up my veggies, adding all of the ingredients to the slow cooker, and then setting it on high. The process felt meditative, since I wasn’t rushing while I cooked.

Now, for my adaptations. I doubled the seasonings of this recipe. If you like a lighter flavor, please feel free to bump it back down. My slow cooker also wouldn’t hold everything all at once, so I added the chicken broth more gradually, once some of it had already steamed off during stirring. If all of it will sit in your pot at once, godspeed to you and your soup.

All that to say, it was a relatively easy assembly that just required a little patience. And for the rest of the afternoon, the scent of the slowly bubbling mixture drifted through our house, making the whole place feel cozy and warm. Of course, this particular soup also smelled like Mexican food, which was an added bonus.

By the end of the day, even my husband was really craving a bowl. And as we sat and sipped and slurped from our bowls, I realized that both of us had needed time together. We had needed a sit-down kind of meal. We had both needed soup. No proof required.

MEXICAN CHICKEN SOUP (ADAPTED FROM THE FOOD NETWORK)

Ingredients
3 boneless, skinless whole chicken breasts
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 (28 ounce) can whole or diced tomatoes with juice
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chiles
4 ounces tomato paste
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 chipotle peppers in adobo (from a can)
1/2 lime, juiced
Fixings: Tapatio hot sauce, avocado, sour cream, grated cheese, crushed tortilla chips, fresh cilantro, extra slices of lime, etc.

Directions
■ Put the chicken in a slow cooker. Add chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes, chicken broth, black beans, tomatoes with chiles, tomato paste, onion, chipotle pepper and red and yellow peppers. If everything does not fit in your slow cooker at once, add 2/3 of the chicken broth at first, and then more later. Stir. Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook for 5 hours on high or 8 hours on low.
■ Stir in the lime juice. Remove the chicken to a plate and use 2 forks to break it into chunks (or shred it finely). Return the chicken to the pot, taste and add more seasoning if necessary.
■ Serve piping hot in a bowl with hot sauce, avocado, sour cream, crushed tortilla chips, slices of lime and cilantro leaves on top, if desired.

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