delicious soups

Cold weather makes me want to eat soup.  This week we have had two delicious soups.  The Mister and the younger two have devoured these soups.  Greg has skipped dinner two nights in row.  Interpret that how you will.

The first soup is from Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with your Slowcooker.  Generally, I avoid crockpots.  If you own this cookbook you may notice that the vast majority of recipes involve a can of cream of something soup, mixed with sour cream, and probably topped with cheese.  Cooking with crockpots is not for the lactose intolerant.

This recipe, however, is lactose free! Sadly, I did not take a picture. However, it pretty much looks like what you would expect a taco soup to look like.

 Taco Soup with Black Beans, page 36 (6-8 servings)
1lb of ground beef, browned and drained (I fried mine with about a quarter of a chopped onion)
28 oz can crushed tomatoes (I only had peeled, so that's what we used)
15 oz can corn, undrained (I only had corn in the freezer)
15 oz can black beans, undrained
15 oz can refried beans (actually, the recipe called for kidney beans, but I substituted refried beans)
1 envelope dry Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix
1 envelope dry taco seasoning mix
Toss everything in slow cooker and cook on low 4 to 6 hours.  (You know, you could easily make this in under an hour if you just cooked in one big pot on the stove.)

I served it over rice, with some lactose-free cheddar cheese and cut up avocado.  It was delicious.  Princess had three bowls and Peter had two, until Greg came in and started grousing that dinner was horrible, and then everyone decided that dinner sucked.

The other soup we had was a delicious Sausage Soup, that I found at What Am I Going To Be When I Grow Up. (I would say there are about 6-8 servings in this recipe.  Maybe less.)  I slightly modified the recipe--it calls for a 20 oz can of diced tomatoes and 32 oz of chicken stock, but I used 28 oz of peeled tomatoes (yes, we buy that stuff in bulk) and 24 oz of chicken stock, and it came out lovely. I halved the amount of sausage.  I also added a shredded zucchini when frying the onions (shredded because it is easier to hide. Large chunks of zucchini would be met with YUCK).  And, because I am feeding an Italian family, I added olive oil when frying up the onion and zucchini.  It was so delicious, in fact, that there isn't any left for lunch tomorrow.  Waah.

You can't even see the zucchini!

Tomorrow I am making an escarole soup.  As soon as I find a recipe for it.