Tonight's A Soup Night!

It's cold and wet outside. Which means Fall has truely kicked in! I love fall...for many reasons! The colors, smells, and feel are a few of my favorite reasons. I love to see all the trees changing colors, and luckily where I live all 4 seasons are very clear. And fall is beautiful! Especially now that we live at the base of the mountains...all those beautiful colors are right out our front door! I love the smell of fall. There is just something in the air...not to mention all the baking that goes on during this wonderful season. Pumpkin Pies, Cookies, Bread. And the feel of Autumn is great! Aside from days like today when it's so cold outside there is actually a dust of snow on the lawn, I love the feel of Autumn afternoons. It's nice and cool, a little breezy. Perfect for a stroll! It's finally soup season! I'll be looking for and posting lots of soup recipes this Fall/Winter. My favorite thing on a cool evening is some soup....followed by some hot cocoa and cookies! So first soup of the season is: Taco Soup

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn
1 packet taco seasoning
1-1 1/2 cups of water
1 can tomato sauce
1 can stewed tomatoes

Directions:
-Brown ground beef
-In a medium sauce pan combine all ingredients
-Either simmer on low for 20-30 minutes OR throw it all in the crock-pot & cook on low for a few hours.

I serve mine with shredded cheddar cheese on top and some Fritos corn chips. The scoops are good to eat the soup with, or just the regular Fritos are good thrown on top. I made this soup VERY often last year. It's one of my favorites. One little tip: If you like milder soup-add more water...if you like spicier soup stick with the 1 cup. I put in 1-1/2 cups and it seems perfect. It's not too spicy for my 3 year old, and spicy enough for my husband and I.

Remember to e-mail your favorite recipes to me!
megcancook@yahoo.com

Home-Made Sloppy Joes

A girl at work and I swap recipes probably once a week. This week...neither of us had any good recipes. I had been craving Sloppy Joes, and my husband REFUSES to eat Manwich LoL! So I sat down and made up my own Sloppy Joe recipe. And it is DEE-LISH!!! I didn't really measure anything but here's an estimate of what I did use:

1 lb ground beef
1/2 a small onion-chopped
1 green bell pepper-chopped
1/2 bottle Honey BBQ sauce
1/4-1/2 cup brown sugar
1 can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce


-Brown the ground beef, saute the onion and bell pepper with the ground beef
-Pour the BBQ sauce, tomato paste and brown sugar in a crock pot and let it warm
-Add the tomato sauce to the ground beef
-Mix the ground beef mixture into the brown sugar/BBQ sauce mixure
-cook on low all day!

It was soooo yummy! I planned on having left overs the next day but, my husband ate most of it and took the rest to work! So next time I'm doubling the amount so we'll have leftovers the next day! I was amazed at how well it turned out! I didn't even know what I was doing! Hahahaha! Ya'll should try it! It's super yummy!!!!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are my son's favorite cookie!

1 cup shortening
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets
-In large bowl, cream together shortening and sugar until smooth
-Beat in eggs, one at a time
-Stir in vanilla and pumpkin until well blended
-In another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, & nutmeg. Then stir into the pumpkin mixture
-Mix in chocolate chips
-Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets
-Bake 12-15 minutes, until edges begin to brown
-Cool on wire racks

These cookies are really yummy! I think this recipe calls for a few less spices than most of the other pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipes I've seen, so they may not have as much spice. But they still make your house smell super yummy and they're very tasty! Enjoy!

Cranberry Pork Chops

These were the best Pork Chops I have EVER made! My Hubby made them for me for mother's day I think earlier this year. I stuffed the recipe in my cook book and ran across it today. When hubby made them he made them in the crock pot and they were really yummy...but we both agreed they tasted much better tonight when I baked them!!! They had much more flavor! Here's the recipe:

1 can Jellied Cranberry Sauce
1 packet Onion Soup Mix
3-4 Boneless Pork Chops

-Put the Cranberry Sauce in a baking dish, and heat in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes. This is just to kind of melt the sauce, so it is easier to spread on the chops. (You may even be able to do it in the microwave)
-Add 3/4 of the packet of Onion Soup Mix
-Nestle the Pork Chops in the sauce (I even spooned some sauce on top, which I think totally made all the flavor!)
-Bake covered at 375 for 30 minutes
-Uncover Chops and bake for about 5-7 more minutes

I served Roasted Red Potatoes with them and it was the best meal I've made in a long time! Here's my easy recipe for roasted potatoes. I've never actually made them in the oven, I haven't figured out how to bake potatoes at 450 degrees for 30 minutes, and bake meat at 375 for 30 minutes and have them be done at the same time...so the microwave works for this and they still taste great!!! Here's tonights recipe for potatoes:

4 Red Potatoes
2 TBS Olive Oil
The leftover Onion Soup Mix

-Quarter your potatoes
-Put the Olive Oil & Onion Soup Mix in a zip lock bag, add the quartered potatoes, seal and shake until the potatoes are well coated.
-Lay potatoes on a microwave safe plate and microwave on high for 10-12 minutes!

My family LOVED this meal! There were no leftovers whatsoever! It's a recipe I'll be keeping in the front of my cook book now for sure!!! I'm surprised I hadn't made it since my hubby made it for me! I was so excited when I found it!!! ENJOY!!!

Cream Of Chicken Soup Recipes

I bought a case of Cream Of Chicken Soup because it was a killer deal...now I need some recipes to use it in! I can only think of a few...so email me any and every recipe you have that calls for Cream of Chicken Soup! (Even recipes for Cream of Mushroom...no harm in substituting!) megcancook@yahoo.com
Thanks!!!