Taco Soup

I can't believe I have not already put this on here! We love this recipe! It is quick, easy, can be frozen, made for large or small groups, vegetarian or with meat, and can be completely kept in food storage.

2 cans kidney beans
2 cans black beans
2 cans mexicorn
1 can tomato sauce
1 can Mexican stewed tomatoes
1 packet taco seasoning
1 lbs ground beef or ground turkey

other nice additions:
1 small can chopped olives
1 small onion chopped and sauteed

Brown hamburger and season lightly as if for tacos.  Combine tomato sauce and taco seasoning in stew pan or crock pot add all other ingredients and warm through.  This is really good the second day because it gets thicker. We eat our with shredded cheese and corn chips.  For vegetarian just leave out the ground meat.

Note: This freezes really well and stays good for a couple months if well bagged or in tight tupperware.

Potato Corn Chowder

This little soup I first heard about from my mom. A friend brought it to her last fall when she was very very sick with shingles.  She used pre-made soups and it is very simple, convenient, and and delicious. 


Quick version:

One can Potato soup + one can Cream style corn

     Warm potato soup according to package and add cream corn and warm to preference.



From Scratch Version:

Six potatoes
4 cups water
6 strips of bacon (i used turkey)
1/4 cup of margarine or butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
Nature Seasoning to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 cans cream style corn
(I also think celery would be a nice addition, but I didn't have any on hand.)


Peel and cube potatoes. Boil until soft in 4 cups of water.  Cook the bacon and cut into small strips.  Melt butter in a separate sauce pan and add flour creating a thick paste ( the thicker you want your soup the thicker and drier you should make this paste by adding more flour) add seasonings to the paste.  Add milk to paste stirring continuously once it has smoothed and thickened add to potatoes.  Add bacon and cream corn and stir steadily on medium low heat until it reaches desired thickness.  Serve and enjoy!!

Cooking for the week and making it up as I go.

So today, I woke up in the mood to cook!  Matt is going to be working extra hours for the next few weeks and I don't to get behind and start eating out. So I cooked all day!  I made two casseroles, 2 meals worth of potato/corn chowder, 2 meals worth of white chicken chili, two loaves of bread, and baked oatmeal for dinner tonight!  I froze one casserole and half of each soup and will freeze one loaf of bread.  Having 3 meals frozen and 3 in the fridge improves my outlook vastly!! 

The fun part of this was I made up a couple recipes as I went. Yup, I invented a Bean and Rice casserole and the potato/corn chowder I improvised from scratch rather than using premade soups.  I will post both the recipes for the potato/corn chowder.  I think I may hold off on posting the bean/rice casserole til after we eat it. It smelled really good but we are not eating it til tomorrow.

Last week we discovered that having frozen flat bread pizza crusts in the freezer is a kin to having premade frozen pizzas on hand and taste a whole lot better. So tomorrow I plan to make some more pizza crusts to freeze.  Keeping cheese, pepperoni, and pizza sauce on hand is easy and in expensive. 

Here's to planning ahead and hoping my latest inventions are edible!! LOL