Grab your spoons! It's time for soup week!
To start, I thought I'd make a quick staple from our household: taco soup. I use my friend Amy's recipe, which I can't share on here because hello! It's hers! But this recipe is oh-so-close to it. In fact, it's nearly identical.
I love this soup because it makes a lot of servings, and I freeze what we don't eat and have at least two to three more meals on hand for days when I just can't seem to get around to cooking. In this household, leftovers that freeze well make me want to give the meal a crown. (Maybe I should start writing crowns on my recipe notecards for particularly happy meals? Love this idea!)
And may I just say that in my taco soup recipe search, there were a bunch of recipes that involved Italian seasoning? OMG. It's TACO soup. Who uses Italian seasoning in TACO soup? Apparently quite a bit of America. But this southwest native refuses! No Italian seasoning in MY taco soup!
(Surprisingly, I have no qualms with the fact that tacos and soup seem to be unrelated food options.)
Down to soup business! I brown my meat and sing along with Louis Prima. (Sure, I may say no to their seasoning, but Louis Prima is divine!) After the meat's done, it's time to drain it and dump it into my large crockpot. Now here's the tough part. I take the rest of my ingredients and dump them into the crockpot in no particular order. No rhyme or reason whatsoever. Tough, I know. I usually separate my beans and tomatoes into different layers, but if that doesn't sound good to you, for heaven's sake, lump them together and go crazy! Canned beans are easy, but also feel free to use dried that you've cooked yourself. In the days leading up to taco soup creation day, I set my small crockpot going with dried beans in preparation. When that happens, I usually throw some garlic into the crockpot with it, lending a yummy flavor to the beans. In the past, I've gone crazy and used different types of beans—black beans, garbanzos, white beans...you get it. Man, this soup is hard, and the recipe allows for no flexibility whatsoever!
As you can see, this particular batch of taco soup features pintos and garbanzos. I didn't have enough ground beef on hand, but I did have a pound of breakfast sausage, so I used half sausage, half ground beef. Five hours on high in my crockpot, and my house smells like taco soup, and my stomach grumbles with anticipation, and my husband groans because I've made taco soup again, and while I love it enough to eat it three times a week, he only loves it enough to eat it once, maybe twice a month, and while I told him I wouldn't make it again for awhile, it just seemed cruel to have soup week and not make the soup I eat most of all.
Feel free to pour a large amount into a bowl and crown it with lots of sour cream and cheese and fritos. That's how I eat mine, anyway, though I imagine it's a lot healthier without any of those extras.
Right now, I've got black beans in my small crockpot, getting ready for tomorrow! Until then, I wish you a happy soup week, and I bid you adieu! I've got nano!
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