Slow Cooker Mexican Style Beer and Cheese Soup

Holy cow does having a child eat into your time. Nobody warned me about that. Okay, everybody warned me about that. It's a good thing she's beautiful and hilarious, so I don't mind. One of the big things I've learned in the last year or so is to find meals that can be prepared in a hurry or require very little maintenance. During the winter months, that means I'm leaning heavily on the slow cooker. The Wife was recently after me to make some beer and cheese soup. I have a recipe and it's pretty good, but wanted something that would work well with the absolutely vile pumpkin beer I had in the fridge. I found it! The beer flavor really works quite well and the soup has a nice bite to it from the peppers. This is a great cold-weather soup. We are definitely making it again. As a bonus, at the bottom of this post, you'll find the link to the YouTube video of the recipe. As always, notes are in blue.

Slow Cooker Mexican Style
Beer and Cheese Soup
(that absolutely does not photograph well)

Ingredients

• 1-1/4 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 can (10.75 oz) cheddar cheese soup (if you can find nacho cheese soup, that would probably be even better)
• 1 can (10 oz) diced tomato and peppers
• 1 can (15.5 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can (14.75 oz) creamed corn
• 1 can (12 oz) Harvest Patch Shandy (Leinenkugel) beer. (if you can't find it, any pumpkin beer will do. If you can't find pumpkin beer, or despise all things pumpkin, use any pilsner style beer (Old Style, etc). If you can't/won't use booze, just use an equal amount of water or beef stock)
• 1 envelope taco seasoning (about 1 oz)

Directions

1. In a pan, brown ground beef along with the chopped onions. Drain off excess grease and then stir in taco seasoning (into the meat and onion mix, not the drained grease because that would be dumb)
2. Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker. (we used a 3 quart and it was close. I suggest at least a 4 quart cooker). Cook on HIGH about 4 hours.

BONUS VIDEO

Good Times!