Finely chop the onions, carrots, celery and bell pepper in a food processor or by hand.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot (one that can hold at least 3 litres or 3 quarts of liquid) and add the chopped vegetables with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook on medium until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Chop the chipotle chili pepper and add to the cooking vegetables. Add the tomatoes, thyme and oregano as well.

If you are cooking chicken breasts, now would be a good time to start cooking them if you haven't cooked them earlier -- Coat with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe a little chipotle powder and grill or bake at 400 degrees F until cooked through.

Peel and cut the potatoes into small bite-size pieces, about 1/2" cubes. Add half of the potatoes to the vegetables and put the other half in a bowl and cover with cold water.

Add the chicken stock, cover the pot and let simmer until the potatoes and other vegetables are very soft. This will take about 15-20 minutes depending on how large you cut the vegetables and potatoes.

Once the stock has heated up, taste it to see if needs any salt. Add salt according to your taste.

When the vegetables are very soft, with an immersion blender, puree the soup until there are no more large pieces. If you are using a regular blender, blend the soup in batches being careful to take the plastic centre out of the blender lid and cover it with a tea towel so you don't have exploding scalding hot soup all over yourself.

Add the rest of the uncooked potatoes (discard the cold water the potatoes were in) to the soup and the rinsed black beans.

While that starts to cook, shred the chicken with two forks or chop the chicken and add it to the soup. Discard the chicken skin and carcass.

When the pieces of potato are fully cooked through, should take about 20 minutes, add the frozen sweet corn and let it cook for 4 or 5 minutes so that the temperature of the soup can come back up.

Stir in the cream or creme fraiche.

Finely chop the cilantro and add three quarters of it, reserving the rest to sprinkle in each bowl as a garnish if you like. Otherwise, just add the whole lot of it.

Stir in the fresh lime juice and serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro.