Taco soup!

When I visit Sunshine at school, I stay in a hotel room with a kitchenette. There, I can prep food for her to store in the freezer. Her favorites are veggie noodle soup, taco soup, and chicken/black bean enchiladas (not vegetarian). This isn't the most appetizing photo, but it's my little prep kitchen during a recent visit. Taco soup recipe below. It's a winner!

I have been making variations of this taco soup for years. My kids devour it. Honestly, I've never seen anybody turn it down.

Ingredients:

1 can corn, drained
2 cans diced or crushed tomatoes (whatever you prefer)
4 cans beans (black beans, pinto, or tri-bean blend: drained and rinsed)
1/4 cup taco seasoning (store bought or make your own)
1 T dehydrated onion
2 cans of water

Put all ingredients in Instant Pot, high pressure for 4 minutes. Manual release. Top with cheese and/or sour cream and tortilla chips. Also freezes well, and is GREAT as leftovers.

Stove top alternative: place all ingredients in a soup pot and simmer on the stove top until flavors meld and onions are rehydrated.

Sick day!

Last night about dinner time, our littlest herbivore got sick.  UGH!  As soon as I got her settled and felt comfortable leaving for 30 minutes, I ran to the grocery store for rations.  Lemon-lime soda, little noodles, cleaning supplies (we try not to use paper towels but when somebody gets sick I have no problem using disposables), bananas, bread, etc.  You know, stuff to follow the BRAT (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast) diet.  There went my plan of using up pantry food and not hitting the store again until payday.  Oh well, going with the flow!

Fortunately, the bug seemed to be very short-lived (knock on wood) and Punky was up for some solid food by lunch time today (we tested her stomach this morning with saltines).  I relied on an old standard, what my mom always made us when we were sick but able to stomach solids: little noodles in chicken broth.  But, uh, no chicken broth, right?  Unless you use these awesome little nuggets of goodness:

I wanted to make a substantial amount of broth, so I used 4 cubes to make 8 cups of broth.  As soon as it came to a boil I added angel hair pasta that had been broken into small pieces.  The pasta now mimicked the "little noodles" my mom used to make us (Skinner Fideo Mediano, but our grocery store didn't have any in stock).  My kids have learned to appreciate a mug of little noodles as fantastic comfort food.  They were all delighted to slurp their noodles down with some saltines on the side.

Review by the kids:  They all ate happily, and said the "Not Chick'n" broth tasted just like the real thing.  They actually used straws to slurp their noodles and said it was the perfect way to warm their bellies on our first fall day (yay for Texas cold fronts!).  There was nothing left in the pot or their mugs after lunch.

Review by the mom:  The broth was fantastic, and I'm glad we found it at our grocery store and decided it would be a good pantry item (it was also endorsed by a v-friend, who said she orders it from Amazon).  The angel hair was a great sub for the little noodles.  I'm glad I didn't get discouraged when I couldn't find the old standard.