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.

It is cold and dreary this weekend, which makes it perfect weather for chili. I actually made this and took the photos a couple of weeks ago, right when my computer died on me. So apologies for the extremely lousy pictures in this bunch, but I didn’t realize until much later and I didn’t want to wait until I made it again to share it with you. So with that in mind, here we go, out of focus pictures and all. It’s amazingly simple, you won’t need the pictures anyways, trust me.

You’ll need 5 cans of Brooks Mild Chili beans, 2 cans of chili ready tomatoes, 1 can of tomato soup, 1 can of water, 1 can of tomato sauce, and 1lb of ground beef. Not pictured: an onion. I forgot to buy one, and I don’t like them anyways, so I left them out.

First brown and drain your ground beef (and your onions, if you’re using those). The ground beef will be the first thing you add to your pan… and make sure you use a big one. I used the biggest pan I have (which is admittedly not all that big) and barely had enough room.

Dump in your 5 cans of Brooks mild chili beans. I’ve been told that it HAS to be this brand of chili beans… we’re usually pretty store brand friendly around here, as you can probably tell from my usual ingredients photos, but apparently other brands of chili beans “just aren’t the same.” That’s what my mom says anyways, and since she’s been cooking the chili I like for a long time, I decided to trust her on that one. We like a lot of beans in our chili, but you’re welcome to scale down the amount if you feel like it’s going to be too much.

(See? I told you the photos get lousy…) Next, add in your two cans of chili ready tomatoes.

Followed by your can of tomato sauce.

Your can of tomato soup.

And then your can of water.

Finally stir it all together, and let it cook! Basically you’re just waiting for it to get hot enough to eat… the longer it sits, the more it thickens. In my opinion, the chili is better the second day than it is the first day too.

Oh! I almost forgot the secret ingredient– Hot Dogs! I sliced up half of the package into my pot of chili. Obviously, hot dogs are not a necessary ingredient if you’re not feeling it, but I have to tell you — the hot dogs have always been my favorite part.

I was too impatient to wait for it to thicken up much at all, so the first night, I ate it pretty soupy as soon as everything was hot. Add some cheese, sour cream, and crackers if you have some, and you’ve got a wonderful warm and filling chili for cold winter evenings! This chili is not very spicy, which fits my bill exactly. I took some over to my best friend, and she declared it was better than her mothers. Score one for me and my hot dog filled chili!