Soupruary 20th: Taco Soup

My tackiest creation yet (if you don't count the St. Patrick's Day Tree).


Location:
The party room!

Attendees:
Leslie, Liam, Ken & Barbie, Joshua, me

Menu:
Taco soup
Green salad
Apple cake & gelato

Entertainment:
Liam on the keys!


The Soup:
The idea to do this came from the guest of honor: It was Mrs. Mattie's birthday, and one of her specialties is Taco Pie (which I just had the pleasure of trying for the first time in January). So I thought, hey! Taco Soup! It was only about halfway done cooking when I remembered there was no way it could be as good as Taco Pie because, well, it's not PIE.

Here's a helpful equation for how it tasted:
You know, canned, childish, obvious, pedestrian, cartoony, but certainly not unpleasant.

It was incredibly easy to the point that it made me feel like a bit of a cheater. Really, if it's easy to the point of barely counting as cooking, it doesn't have any right to taste even one smidgen better than this did. It's nothing spectular, but it made me laugh, and I can't imagine anyone being offended by the taste. Seriously though—Look at these ingredients and tell me they aren't hilarious:

Especially entertaining to me: the presence of organic green onions in the midst of all that crap. Why bother?


Now I've got to try, like, pizza soup or macaroni and cheese soup. Those sound pretty funny too.

Note: Putting up the recipe isn't necessarily a recommendation of the soup. It's just what I do.

Adapted from Paula Deen's recipe

1 large onion, chopped
1 14.5-oz can black beans, drained
1 14.5-oz can light red kidney beans, drained
1 14.5-oz can pinto beans, drained
1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes in juice
1 14.5-oz can Mexican-style stewed tomatoes
2 10-oz cans diced tomatoes with chiles
1 4.5-oz can diced green chiles
1 4.5-oz can sliced black olives, drained
1 1.25-oz package taco seasoning
1 1-oz package ranch dressing mix
2 12-oz packages Morningstar Meal Starters Crumbles (or your preferred meat subsitute or browned ground beef or turkey if feel like swinging that way)

Brown your onions in a large frying pan, then put onions and everything else in a crock pot and stir it up. Add water until it looks like the right amount of soupiness for you, then cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Serve over baked tortilla strips and garnish as desired. The end.

garnishes:
green onions, thinly sliced
cheddar cheese, shredded
sour cream

tortilla strips:
1 package corn tortillas
olive oil
sea salt

Preheat oven to 350-F. Cut desired amount of tortillas in half (just in a big stack), then into strips of desired thickness (I like mine about 1/4 to 1/3" thick). In a bowl, toss strips with a glug of olive oil and some sea salt, then spread evenly in one layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until crispy and turning golden. Be careful: These are super addictive for snacking, so don't eat them all before your soup is ready!