It turns out I lied about having other various dried peppers. So it's just the red pepper flakes. I do, however, also have tabasco and a spice rub that's fairly smokey.

(This concludes this week's edition of "What occhiblu has in her pantry.")

At this point, all I can tell you is that I WISH I knew enough to give you advice. This post is kind of making me hungry :-)

Hrm. I dunno. I think I'd go ahead and use the smoked paprika as well bc it's just so damned delicious.

I'm with gaspode. I don't know how close it is as a substitute, but it should stand well on its own.

Just tried the fresh green chilis, and they taste like unripe bell peppers (so, not at all hot).

I think y'all are right about the paprika. Since the chilis get added so early in the recipe, maybe I'll go ahead with the canned green chilis and paprika, then see if it needs cayenne later.

I would use the fire roasted green chiles AND the smoked paprika along with a small dash of cayenn and a small dash of ground cumin. My reasoning is as follows: chipotles in adobo supply three things: soft pepper flesh flavor, heat, and smokiness. You need the paprika for the smoky, the chilies for the fresh pepper flavor, and cayenne for the heat (paprika doesn't give you much). I suggest throwing the cumin in because it's one of the more prominent flavors in the adobo, and so the flavor of cumin should be present in the recipe.

When I'm out of chipotles in adobo, I just use the Knorr chipotle seasoning cubes. I don't think they have flour in them, but there are some ingredients that I can't decipher. So here's an ingredients list:

salt, monosodium glumate, sugar, hydrogenated palm oil, onion powder, cargli powder, chile powder, silicon dioxide, hydrolized corn protien, natural and artificial flavor, caramel color, citric acid, disodium inosinate, spice, yellow 6 lake, disodium guanylate, sulfur dioxide

So I ended up throwing in almost the entire small can of fire-roasted green chilis, along with maybe a tablespoon of smoked paprika and a dash of cayenne, at the beginning of the recipe where it called for the chipotles. I also garnished my soup with a dash more of paprika, for color, in addition to the green onions.

So, with all that... the soup was awesome, but waaaay too much work. It felt like a super-good amuse-bouche at a super-fancy restaurant, in that, the flavors were amazing, and the texture was all smooth and upscale, but I'm not sure that I'd bother with all the blending and sieving and straining next time. But I'd also try it without all the blending and straining, and see if it'd work as a chowder-type soup.

And while I was in the midst of making the soup (and the lentils and salmon I also made), I used up the leftover roast chicken we had for Chicken Guacamole Salad. Which was awesome, at least the little bit that I tasted.