for the love of the crockpot!

What a wonderful think a crockpot is. It helps make dinner soo easy. Mondays are pretty busy for me. I work all day, and then I have Monday Night Speed Night, so I don't get home until after seven. I try to plan Monday's meal to be something that I can put together early in the day and Andy can finish and have ready when I get home or just be something he cooks.

Tonight, I tried a new recipe that I saw on Carrie's blog. Find it the recipe here.

It was called taco soup. It was easy, pretty cheap, and it makes a lot.

What I used:
1 can crushed tomatos (a big can...28 oz)
about half a bag of frozen corn
1 can of black beans (15 oz), drained and rinsed
almost a full jar of salsa
ground cumin
garlic powder
onion powder
1 lb. ground beef
half a box (or a little more) of whole wheat macaroni
some water

I mixed together everything but the ground beef and water this morning. Then, I had Andy start the crockpot later on in the day. I could have just started it on low and left it all day if Andy wasn't home. Then, when it was close to dinner time, Andy ground the beef and made the macaroni. We mixed it together and it was ready to eat!

To garnish it up a little, we had some cheese, some sour cream, and some tortilla chips to use as we please. 

I thought it was pretty good. I think that next time I made it I would had a can of green chilis and add chili powder to it. Andy said that he thought it was good. He said it tasted like chili just not as good. That being said, I liked having corn in there! I liked having the salsa in there, so why not just try to make it taste a little more like chili? Also, if I had more time, I would have browned some garlic and onion and use fresh ingredients rather than the powder. I didn't have time, nor did I have the ingredients, so powdered did just fine.

Sooo...here it is! It's not so soupy. Carrie's looked a little more soupy, but I think we may have had more macaroni in there.