Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Recipe: Taco Soup

The Deines Family is a vegetarian family. We were once vegan, but now we just say that we're "near vegan". I need a little ice cream from time to time, and vegan ice cream tastes about as good as cardboard. Yes, Reese is also a vegetarian, and will be one until he decides on his own to eat the rotting flesh of a dead animal. Yuck.

People always wonder what we eat and how we get enough protein. If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked about protein, I could buy myself a lot of Starbucks hot chocolate. There are other sources of protein than just meat! Did you know that many fruits and vegetables even have protein?

Okay, back to the reason for this post. I thought I would share some of our recipes, so that you can get an idea of what we eat. You might even decide to try out a few recipes! Vegetarian food is much more than a few steamed veggies on a plate and it can be quite enjoyable.

This first recipe is a Paula Deen recipe, y'all. A member of our church family brought us this taco soup after Reese was born and it was so delicious we asked for the recipe immediately. I ran across the same recipe on Paula Deen's website a few months later, but we still call it Amber's Taco Soup.

The recipe calls for meat, which we just leave out. It also calls for olives, which I think would taste really good in it, but I haven't convinced George of that yet. It's perfect for a cold day like today.

Taco Soup
Photo from pauladeen.com.


Ingredients

Jalapenos
Chopped green onions
Grated cheese
Sour cream
Corn chips
1 1-ounce package ranch salad dressing mix
1 1 1/4-ounce package taco seasoning mix
1/2 cup green olives, sliced (optional)
1 small can black olives, drained and sliced (optional)
2 4 1/2-ounce cans diced green chilies
1 14 1/2-ounce can tomatoes with chilies
1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 14 1/2-ounce can Mexican tomatoes
1 15 1/4-ounce can whole kernal corn, drained
1 15 1/2-ounce cans pink kidney beans
2 15-1/2 ounce cans pinto beans
2 cup diced onions
2 lb ground beef

Directions

Brown the ground beef and onions in a large skillet; drain the excess fat, then transfer the browned beef and onions to a large crackpot or a stockpot. Add the beans, corn, green onions, tomatoes, chilies, olives, and seasonings, and cook on low setting all day (6 to 8 hours) if using a crockpot, or simmer over low heat for about 1 hour in a stockpot on the stove. To serve, place a few corn chips in each bowl and ladle soup over them. Top with sour cream, cheese, and jalapenos.

Enjoy!


4 comments:

Unknown said...

It might be good with some boca included as well!

Hough said...

Plus you can get iron from the natural source of pills. I only hope Jay doesn't beat me to be the first to give Reese a nice piece of meat.

I think I could be vegetarian if I could make an exception on fish, cow, pig and chicken, oh and shrimp and the occasional lamb and crab oh and duck and Turkey and crawdads, the rare squirrel and deer, and elk and goose. But other than those things I'm pretty much a vegetarian too.

The Acosta Family said...

That sounds good!

Anonymous said...

I think I am going to try that recipe soon!