Delicious Taco Soup with Turkey

Sorry I've been gone for awhile.  Between the kids' school work, dh's in college and needing math tutoring, and sewing for my first craft fair, I decided the blog would take a back seat for awhile.

I hadn 't told you guys, but it's so exciting! My first craft fair!  I was selected to be apart of this Handmade Harvest Etsy craft fair in about 4 weeks.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to blogging regularly.  We go all out for Halloween around here, and we have decided to go as an entire family of zombies for Halloween.  So...I've got costumes to zombie-fy in addition to all my other duties.   

On to the soup!

This weekend was our first big cold front.  It dropped into the 50s for the highs, and we're in Texas, so that's seriously cold weather in these parts.  I was getting that hankering for a warm soup or stew to fill our bellies for dinner tonight.  A taco soup recipe caught my eye a few weeks ago, and I wondered how well something like that would go over with the whole family.  Em hates Mexican food.  The baby eats 2 bites of anything and spits out most of it, and Mr. E and dh are essentially human garbage cans.  Those two will eat anything, I think, lol.

I whipped up my own recipe from things I had on hand, and OMG it was so darn good.  Everyone, including the baby, cleaned their bowl.   So I thought I'd share.  This recipe is super easy and super quick.  You can be serving it in 20 minutes.

Taco Soup

3/4 lb ground turkey (or beef)
1 cup of crushed tomatoes
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 pkg of Knorr's taco rice
6 cups of water 
1/2 pkg of taco seasoning
crushed tortilla chips
shredded cheddar cheese
Opt. sour cream

Brown the turkey.  Heat up the dutch oven on high and add crushed tomatoes and both cans of beans.  Add the meat and stir.  Next, add the package of rice.  Add the water.  When it starts boiling, add the taco seasoning and stir until it's all well blended.  Simmer on medium until rice is tender.

I topped each bowl with crushed tortilla chips and a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese.  I was out of sour cream, or I would have added it as well.

Mr E and dh both added taco sauce and jalapenos to their bowls for extra spiciness. 

I served it with corn muffins I made from this recipe. 
It was a perfect balance of spicy from the soup and sweet from the cornbread.

Two things for the cornbread recipe:
   1.  I didn't have buttermilk, so I added 1 tbs of lemon juice and filled up the rest of the measuring cup to 1 cup with milk.
   2.  Since I made muffins, it only took 15 minutes for baking while the soup was simmering (the recipe calls for 30 minutes for a pan of cornbread).

This served 5 with a bowl or two to spare for leftovers. 

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Like I said in yesterday's post, this is a compilation of a few recipes. This amount feeds my family of 5 plus leftovers for hubby to take to work a couple days. I'll post the long way and the changes for the quick and dirty way.


Long Way
2 chicken breasts
1 small onion
5-6 potatoes - cubed
2 cups of carrots - sliced
2 cups of chicken broth/stock
1 tbs minced garlic
1 tsp garlic salt
1 cup of milk mixed with 1tbs of flour
8 oz cream cheese
1 pkg of Reamed frozen egg noodles
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil chicken breasts in just enough water to cover them until thoroughly cooked. Turn heat down to medium and pull out chicken to cool. Add veggies, garlic, salt, pepper, chicken stock and some water (I usually add about 2 cups). Cook until veggies tender. While waiting, cool and shred chicken. When veggies are ready add chicken back to pot. Add noodles. Wait until its boiling again and then add the flour + milk mixture. Watch the pot and stir or it will boil over. Lastly add the cream cheese in large dollops and allow to melt. Don't try to stir it in or it will separate and look nasty. Once it's all melted, stir, add water if necessary and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes before serving.

The quick and dirty method speeds up the time because there is no waiting to cook the veggies. You just add a can of diced potatoes and a can of sliced carrots. Then, you can quickly add everything else and serve.