I use the term soup loosely since I tweaked the original recipe to make it not so brothy. I'm not sure what it is about my cooking or following recipes, but my versions never seem to turn out like the photos on the original sites. I wonder if they have food stylists like in all the food commercials?
What you will need:
1 pound ground beef
2 cups beef broth
1/2 Tb garlic powder
1 Tb parsley
1 Tb basil
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
1 cup V8
Shell Pasta (I used about 1/2 the box, you can use as much or as little as you like)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Now the original recipe uses fresh minced garlic, chopped onion, more broth and she adds water (to be honest I forgot about the water). This could also be why mine tasted like it was missing something.
I followed the rest of her directions pretty much to the T.
I added my crockpot bag first (I hated clean up before I found these babies), then mixed the tomatoes and tomato paste.
Next I added the broth, beef (more about that in a minute), garlic powder, parsley, basil, V8 and salt and pepper.
Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours.
Once you are down to 30 minutes left of cook time, add the noodles and give it a stir. This is also where you would add the water, which I forgot and my noodles turned out awesome.
So the beef...is uncooked. I was so scared to do this. I have boiled beef before for our dogs, but never personally ate it. When I read the note at the beginning of the recipe telling me to just add the beef, no pre-cooking needed, I thought of the dogs. If it didn't have garlic in it that would have been the back up plan if it didn't turn out (they get all my nummy dog healthy scraps anyway). Thankfully no back up plan was needed as it turned out ok. As I said in the beginning it was just missing something. I ended up adding more salt and pepper to my bowl and that helped but I still felt like it could use something. I just couldn't put my finger on what it was. I think I may try a few more things if I make it again, like using Italian sausage instead of ground beef, putting onion in it or different seasoning.
As always let me know your thoughts and thanks for stopping by!
