Ersatz Taco Soup

Ever have an idea that was funnier in your head? I thought some black and white dithering would be funny.  Oh well. Too late now! Getting Friday Night Mexican back to its roots as an easy to prepare meal on a Friday is something that we've obviously struggled with.

It can be done however.  You just need to be prepared to sacrifice words like 'authentic', 'fresh', 'honest', and 'Mexican'.  Those words are all overrated anyway.  So if you've got limited time and energy and you want to phone it in like I'm obviously doing, print off the recipe and get to work on Taco Soup!

I started so early in the morning, i was still drinking the morning coffee.  What the knife is doing there, I have no idea.

Oh right, for the one  fresh ingredient in the recipe, 2 cups of diced onions.  In the end, I just used the knife to peel the onion, the real work was done by the food processor.

These aren't even in the recipe but holy cow they're finally here!  Fire roasted diced tomatoes in Toronto.  Welcome to the future.

Two cans of pinto beans, one can of black beans.

Some corn.  All I had was frozen.  I'm lazy like that.  Who wants to drain a can when you can just open a bag?

The red stuff.  This recipe also calls for "Mexican Style Stewed Tomatoes".  I have no idea what those are.  We just got the fire roasted ones.  We can only handle one tomato based innovation per year.

More things.  Those diced green chiles are available at our local shoe box sized big name over priced grocery store down in the beach.  You can't find anything else you're looking for, but they have those.

Some green olives.  They're supposed to be sliced; I whizzed them.

This is the tricky part.  Apparently you have to open the packets and dump the powder into the rest of the ingredients.  If you just try to use these like big tea bags, your results may vary.

Did I mention this was a slow cooker recipe?  Just take of that stuff, put it in your slow cooker, give it a mighty stir and then go work on your thesis for like 8 hours.

See, it's not as bad as it sounds.  I think the term 'Soup' is used rather loosely.  You'll probably want a fork, or at least a small garden trowel.  Obviously when the 8 hours are up, slide some chips on there, along with a dollop of sour cream if that's your thing, and some sliced pickled jalapenos.  But if you don't have all the fancy fixings, don't fret.  This dish stands alone.