Slow Cooker Ground Beef Lasagna Soup

Review

1 lb. ground beef

1 onion, chopped

10 3/4 oz. tomato soup, canned, condensed

14.5 oz. tomatoes, canned, petite diced

15 oz. tomato sauce, canned

2 chicken bouillon cubes

2 beef bouillon cubes

4 c. water

1 1/2 tsp. oregano

1 1/2 tsp. basil

1 tsp. parsley

2 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

8 oz. Ricotta Cheese

8 lasagna noodles, broken into small pieces - UNCOOKED

12 oz. Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Combine all ingredients except for ground beef and mozzarella and ricotta cheeses in the crock pot.  

Recipe said to add RAW ground beef over top, however I added cooked ground beef.

Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours (or high for 4-5 hours).  Half an hour before done, stir in the ricotta cheese.  Serve with the mozzarella cheese on top.

Our Review

This was pretty good.

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Tofurky Tacos and Burritos

Recipe

We used two packs of the ground beef Tofurky, heated in a pan with diced onions and added taco seasoning.  That was it.  We added all of the toppings for tacos and burritos and ate.

Our Review

Two guests didn't even know that this was vegetarian and not real ground beef!  The boys ate it and never noticed a difference and everyone ate more than one taco or burrito, so I think it was a success.

Mexican Lasagna

Recipe

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely minced

6 oz tomato paste

1 Tbls chili powder

2 tsp ground cumin

dash of ground cayenne pepper

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

24 oz tomato sauce

14.5 oz diced tomatoes, drained

15 oz black beans, rinsed and drained

1.5c frozen corn kernels

6 oz chopped olives, canned

9-12 no-boil lasagna noodles

2c shredded mozzarella cheese

1c shredded cheddar cheese

1c sour cream

8oz cream cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease 9x13 pan.

Cook ground beef with the onion, drain the grease.  Add the garlic and tomato paste, stir to combine and cook for 1 minute.  Stir in chili powder, cumin, cayenne, oregano, salt, and pepper and mix well.  Add diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, stir to combine, and then add beans, corn, and olives.  Mix well and heat for about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat.  Spread 1/2 cup of the mix into the bottom of the 9x13 pan.  Layer noodles over the sauce, then spread 1/3 of the mix on top of the noodles.  Dollop 1/3 of the sour cream and 1/3 of the cream cheese across the mix and then sprinkle 1/3 of the cheeses on top.  Repeat the layers two more times until all ingredients are used.

Cover lasagna with foil and bake for 35 minutes.  Uncover and bake for 10-15 more minutes until lasagna is hot and bubbly.

Our Review

This was pretty good, everyone liked it, but I couldn't get past the strange taste of noodles with the mexican ingredients.  I'd like to try it again with a few changes.  Next time I will use tortillas instead of the lasagna noodles.  I think it would also be a good idea to mix the sour cream and cream cheese together so they would be easier to spread around.  We didn't use a lot of cayenne pepper and we didn't have the olives, I think it would be fine with the olives too.

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Stuffed Zucchini (Zucchini Boats)

Ingredients

4 medium zucchini

1 lb pound ground beef

1 lb Italian sausage

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 cup dried bread crumbs

1 egg, beaten

1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz)

1 can condensed tomato soup (10.75 oz)

1 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 13 x 9 baking dish.

Cut zucchini in half lengthwise.  Scoop out the seeds, chop and save about 3/4 of the seeds for the stuffing.  (Feed the rest to your chickens).  In a medium bowl, mix together the ground beef, sausage, onion, bread crumbs, egg, and zucchini seeds.  Place the mixture equally into all of the zucchini boats.  Mixture should be piled up over the top.  Place boats into the baking dish.

In a bowl, stir together the crushed tomatoes, tomato soup, and water.  Spoon the mixture over the zucchini boats, liberally.  Bake for about 45 minutes.

Our Review

There was a lot of liquid in the tray.  We used a cookie sheet, and it overflowed with the juices.  Besides that, it was pretty good.  I did use all of the zucchini seeds and used 5 zucchini's and there was still a lot of stuffing.  In the future I need to either use far less meat (maybe half a pound of each kind) or do 10 zucchini boats.  I also thought the tomato topping was good, but too washed out so next time I won't add the water.

All in all, we'll have it again.

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