Amazing Slow Cooker Taco Soup

I found this recipe at Red Couch Recipes and tried the stove top version of it. I have to say, my entire family loved it and what a great comfort food for a cold day! Please try this:

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef
2 cups diced onion (I forgot to put this into mine and still awesome!)
2 (15 1/2 oz.) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 1/2 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups frozen corn
1 (14 1/4 oz.) can Mexican-style stewed tomatoes (I used Rotel)
1 (14 1/2 oz.) jar mild salsa
1 32 oz. beef broth
2 (1 1/4 oz.) package taco seasoning mix
1 (1 oz.) pkg ranch salad dressing mix
1 medium pkg mild Mexican Velveeta cheese, cubed

Garnishes:

Sour Cream
Graded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Green Onions, sliced
Cilantro
Tortilla Strips - See Below

Baked Tortilla Strips

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut tortillas into strips. Place on baking sheet. Sprinkle with oil and salt and bake for about 10 minutes (I sprayed with a non-stick spray and sprinkled Kosher salt).

Directions for Soup:

Brown the ground beef and onions in a large skillet; drain the excess fat, then transfer to slow cooker or a stock pot. Add the beans, corn, tomatoes, salsa, beef stock, taco seasoning, Velveeta cheese (only if cooking in crock pot), and ranch dressing mix, and cook in a slow cooker on low for 6 to 8 hours (an hour in a stock pot). If cooking on stove, add cheese into soup after finished cooking, stir to melt in. Serve with garnishes on top.

I personally would recommend using tortilla chips from the store as the home made ones were tough to eat in the soup.

I want to make sure I give all the credit to Red Couch Recipes for this amazing soup. You want to check out that blog.

Tim Holtz take on a brick wall card

I am in a swap and needed to create a brick card.  You can find the directions here:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/brickwall/.  I am not one for creating things the way they are supposed to.  I love Tim Holtz and try to really try to expand my creative horizons.  So, I new I wanted my brick wall card to be different and I decided to be 3D.  So, I stamped one of Tim’s stamps onto some paper and colored it in with my Prismacolor colored pencils.  I thought it looked a little flat.  So, I took the new fall Glimmer Mist colors and spritzed some around the paper and used the technique that Heidi Swapp teaches with the paper towels and the brayer.  I then stamped another image of the same stamp onto another piece of paper (the same color).  I cut that image up into the “bricks”, inked the edges with Tim Holtz Faded Jeans Distress Ink.  At this point, I attached them to the original picture with pop dots.  I attached them so that the background image would display through every other brick.  I then found some Bazzil cardstock that pulled some of the Dragonfly Glimmer Mist out a little, used a shear orange ribbon that I thought contrasted with it well and attached to a card front.

What do you think of it now?

Happy Halloween

(Copying posts over here from my Yahoo blog)

Nothing like waiting until  the very last minute to buy and carve pumpkins.  So,  I thought I would share some photos with you.  They aren't the best quality as (can you believe this) all I had with me is my cell phone camera!  I know, I know...how dare I?    OH well, no big deal...at least I have some memories.