Sometime before Christmas, I decided to take advantage of all the sales out there and buy myself a crock pot. Technically a slow cooker, since mine was not made by Rival, but you know what I mean. I immediately had to find a bunch of recipes to try out, and this is the first of them. Expect plenty more crock pot recipes coming up in the relatively near future. I love tacos, taco salads, nachos, that sort of thing, so Taco Soup jumped right out at me.

I found this recipe at Slow and Simple. I thought it sounded promising, but there are a lot of taco soup recipes available out there and I have to say this one is not going to be my favorite. Part of that could be my fault as I think I added too much water, but even though this was good, it just didn’t have quite what I was looking for. That’s why it’s Taco Soup, Take One. I fully intend to try a different recipe soon! But let’s get started with this one, maybe you’ll like it better than I did.

You’ll need 1 lb ground beef, 2 pkg taco seasoning mix, 1 can corn, 1 can black beans, 1 can tomatoes with green chiles, 1 onion, 1 green pepper (The original recipe also called for black olives, which I don’t like, and tomatillos as an optional ingredient. I left both out.) Don’t worry, my meat’s not bad, it’s just still frozen.

Gratuitous picture just to show off my new crockpot. Woohoo!

Brown and drain your ground beef on the stove top, then add it to the bottom of your crock pot.

Add in your two packets of taco seasoning mix. I kind of stirred it in before moving on to the next step, but I don’t think that’s a requirement.

Throw in your chopped green pepper…

And your chopped up onion.

Followed by the 16 oz can of tomatoes with green chiles, undrained. (Sidenote- this may have also contributed to why I wasn’t thrilled with this soup. I got the hot can of tomatoes, but I don’t like spicy AT ALL. It was too much for me, I may have liked this better with a milder can of tomatoes.)

Add your can of black beans, undrained. This is where I started to worry about this recipe… have you SEEN what canned beans are floating in?? Still, I poured it into the crock pot.

Finally, add the can of whole kernel corn, also undrained.

I gave it a quick stir to make sure all the goodies were distributed.

Then I added two cans of water to fill the crock pot. If I were going to make this soup again, I’d cut it back to one can of water, and just keep an eye on it. I felt like this soup was not thick enough, and this is probably why.

Cover the crock pot, and cook on low for 5 or more hours.

This is what the final product looked like, dished up into a bowl.

I added a handful of cheese and sour cream to the bowl. Not pictured, the handful of Fritos I also added to help “thicken” it up.

If you make this, let me know how it turns out. I wasn’t impressed, but maybe it will float your boat!

1 lb lean ground beef, browned and drained
2 pkg. taco seasoning mix
1 16 oz can tomatoes with green chilies, undrained.
1 16 oz can black beans, undrained.
1 16 oz can corn, undrained
1 can black olives, chopped or sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
4 tomatillos, chopped (optional)

Place everything in a large crockpot, add water, if necessary to fill. Cook on low for 5 or more hours until flavors are blended. Top each bowl with a handful of shredded cheddar cheese. Serve with sour cream, taco chips, and salsa on the side.

This recipe is one that I made out of my Betty Crocker cookbook. The one my mom got me for Christmas last year (or was it 2 years ago?) and I’ve read through but never cooked from? Yeah, that cookbook. Anyways, I’ve *finally* cooked out of it. I’ve made the following Corn Bread Topped Italian Sausage pie, and 2 or 3 other recipes that you’ll read about here in the near future.

No more preamble necessary, let’s get on to the casserole, shall we?

1 lb Italian sausage, onion, green pepper, garlic, tomato sauce, frozen corn, sliced mushrooms, cornmeal, flour, milk, sugar, vegetable oil, baking powder, salt, egg, cheese

Whew. For having so many ingredients, it was actually pretty simple to put together. I suspect it would have been even easier, and dare I say faster, if I wasn’t taking pictures of the process lol Anyways, start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees. Then we can start on the Sausage Pie part of this dish.

In skillet, place 1 lb Italian sausage.

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped. Or 1 teaspoon of the already minced stuff if you’re like me!

Add chopped green pepper,

and chopped onion.

Cook over medium heat until the sausage is no longer pink. Drain and return to pan.

Pour in your 15 oz. can of tomato sauce.

And your frozen corn. The recipe called for 9 oz of frozen corn, thawed, but I used 12 oz because that’s the size bag I had.

Add 1 jar of sliced mushrooms that’s been drained. And might I just ask, why do recipes always call for sizes of products that just don’t exist? At least not in my grocery store. I had a 4 oz can of mushrooms, but the recipe called for a 4.5 oz can. I highly doubt that 0.5 oz makes that much of a difference, but it does serve to annoy me.

Anyways, heat this mixture to boiling, and remove from heat. While that’s cooking, you can go ahead and get started on the cornbread mixture.

In a small bowl, pour in 2/3 cup corn meal.

Apparently a few pictures went missing… they’re not on Flickr, and not on my computer even though I distinctly remember taking them. Anyways, this picture shows the addition of 1/3 cup flour, 1 Tbs sugar, and 2 teaspoons baking powder.

1/4 teaspoon salt

Two tablespoons vegetable oil.

Add 1/2 cup milk.

And one large egg.

Beat vigorously with spoon for 30 seconds.

Stir in 1/4 cup cheese. The recipe called for shredded pepper jack cheese. I used Cheddar Jack cause it’s what I had.

Pour your hot sausage mixture into an ungreased 2 qt. casserole.

Pour the cornbread topping mixture over the hot sausage mixture and spread it out as evenly as possible. Some of mine seeped through to the lower layer of sausage.

Put it in the oven, uncovered, and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the cornbread topping is golden brown.

Here’s what it looked like dished out onto my plate. In the end, it was a decent meal. At first, I thought the cornbread had kind of an “off” taste, but that could probably be attributed to the fact that it’s not Jiffy cornbread like I’m used to.

It’s a dish that I’d consider making again, but only if I had company because while it was good, I wasn’t real interested in the leftovers.

Here’s the recipe again so you don’t have to pull it out from between the pictures.

Sausage Pie

1 lb Italian sausage
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 small bell pepper, chopped (1/2 cup)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1 box (9 oz) frozen whole kernel corn, thawed
1 jar (4.5 oz) sliced mushrooms, drained

Corn Bread Topping

2/3 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup shredded pepper jack cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees.
In 10-inch skillet, cook sausage, onion, bell pepper and garlic over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until sausage is no longer pink. Drain. Stir in tomato sauce, corn and mushrooms. Heat to boiling; remove from heat.
In medium bowl, stir all topping ingredients except cheese. Beat vigorously with spoon for 30 seconds, Stir in cheese.
Spoon sausage mixture into ungreased 2 qt casserole. Pour topping over hot sausage mixture, spreading evenly.
Bake uncovered 20 to 25 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

I made this soup about a week and a half ago, and ever since my best friend has been patiently waiting for me to put this recipe up so she can make it for her husband. I’ve tried a couple of times, but each time I was either having problems with the pictures, or with my blog, but today I think it’s going to work!

Let me preface this recipe by saying that when I was reading the list of ingredients, I was not overly impressed, and probably would have just kept right on going. However, my mom had already made it to rave reviews, and it looked simple enough so I decided to try it. It was SO good, and I even thought the soup was better when I packed it in my lunch a couple of days the next week. So, without further ado, I give you Pizza Soup. ((My mom found the recipe online… I can’t find it now, but if I can locate it later, I’ll link it up. Give credit where credit is due, after all!))

The Ingredients: 1 onion, 1 green pepper, 8 oz. mushrooms, 2 cloves garlic, 1 lb. ground beef, 14.5 oz. can petite diced tomatoes, 12 oz. tomato paste, two 14.5 oz. cans chicken broth, Italian seasoning, 3 oz. sliced pepperoni and mozzarella cheese.

First up, ground beef in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. The original recipe called for lean ground beef, but I had 83/17, so that’s what I used.

Next I diced up my green pepper (discard the seeds)

and added that to my pot with the ground beef.

Then I cried. I mean, I diced up some onion. This is a little less than half of the onion pictured with the ingredients, just for reference. Add more onion if you like, but I’m not really an onion person, so it should be impressive I added them at all.

Add the diced onions to the ground beef and green peppers already in the pot.

Then throw in 2 cloves of minced garlic. This is one teaspoon if you’re using the pre-minced stuff like I am. If you’re using fresh sliced mushrooms, you’ll want to add them at this point. Otherwise, saute these ingredients over medium high heat until the ground beef is browned and the veggies are tender. Since I did not use lean ground beef, I also had to drain some grease off at this point.

So now I have less-greasy ground beef, veggies and garlic.

I used canned mushrooms, so I drained them and added them to the pot at this point. Remember, if you were using fresh mushrooms, you’ve cooked them with your meat already.

Add your 14.5 oz can of petite diced tomatoes.

And 12 oz. of tomato paste. A little trick here, and I’d have taken pictures if I’d had enough hands, but an easy way to get tomato paste out of the can is to use the can opener to remove BOTH ends. Then you simply remove one end, and push the other end THROUGH the can to the other side. It will remove all of the tomato paste with it. MUCH easier than trying to scrape it out of the teeny can with a spoon.

Pour in two 14.5 oz cans of chicken broth. No tricks required here, these cans had tabs on the top like pop cans– wonderful!

Add two tablespoons Italian seasoning.

Finally, add 3 oz. of sliced pepperoni. The original recipe called for turkey pepperoni, I used regular. I also thought whole pepperonis might be too big, so I sliced them in half.

Stir well to combine all the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low and let simmer for 20 minutes.

This is what it looked like after cooking down for 20 minutes. It smelled WONDERFUL at this point too… this is about when Sarah arrived, and she said she thought I must have been cooking something fantastic in the crock pot.

So I dished some into a bowl

and topped it with some mozzarella cheese. Yummy! And like I mentioned before, this soup kept very well in the fridge. I cooked it on Sunday and when I took it to work a couple of days last week, I thought it tasted better than it had the first day. I put a portion in a container in the freezer, so one day soon I’ll have to get it out and see how it held up.

Pizza Soup

1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
8 oz. mushrooms
2 cloves minced garlic
1 lb. ground beef
14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes, undrained
12 oz can tomato paste
2 14.5 oz cans chicken broth
2 Tbs. Italian seasoning
3 oz. pepperoni slices
mozzarella cheese

Saute first five ingredients (through ground beef) in large stockpot over med-high heat until beef is cooked and veggies are tender. Add all other ingredients and stir well. Bring to a boil over medium heat then reduce to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Top each serving with cheese.