Crock-Pot Cheeseburger Soup

I am on an endless quest to find more than 5 recipes that I can make in the crock-pot that everybody likes....okay, to find more than 1 recipe everybody likes. Really the only thing I have EVER made in the crock-pot that isn't met with disdain is the Pot Roast with Peppers. I have tried about a million other things--much to everyones distress--but to no avail. We eat most every possible kind of food and so do the kids, so you wouldn't think this would be so hard. We just universally don't like wet, tasteless meat and that is pretty much what I always end up with. We just have never gotten the "food is fuel" memo and still expect everything we make to taste like we worked all day at it. The best crockpot tip I was ever given was by a co-worker that told me I didn't have to add liquid at all. She was very right, and may I say that "her" crockpot bbq wings are always delicious. I have never had her luck with those, however....mine are always just slimy-ish.

So, as I was driving home from kid drop off this morning, I was already thinking about dinner. I had to stop at Walmart anyway and I REFUSE to buy meat there so I had to pick up just additions to what I had at home. I thought of some hamburger meat leftovers and thought I had been so creative by thinking of adding it to cheese soup for---wait for it----Cheeseburger Soup. But, alas, there are recipes for it all over the internet so I cant quit my job and write cookbooks for a living just yet. Bummer.

Anywhoo, I found one recipe without too much colorful stuff floating in it--that is always a deal breaker for the kiddos. I had to low-carbify it for our purposes and I have some mental block when it comes to "cheese food" and "velveeta", so I bought this stuff instead.

I like to feel, in my own twisted brain, like I am not l poisoning my children.....I probably still am, but at least this has the claim of being actual --though tasteless-- cheese.

So, this is really just a mismash of several recipes I found on the internet. I do not cook for low-fatness, just for taste and low-carbness so....here it is.....

Ingredients:
6 cups broth (I did 1/2 chicken and 1/2 beef)
1 pound browned ground beef
1 tsp garlic powder
1 packet onion soup mix
1 head of cauliflower chopped (just use 2 potatoes if you must)
To add at the end:
1 cup half and half
2-16oz blocks of processed american cheese, cubed

Put the first 5 ingredients in the crock-pot and cook on low for 6 hours. Turn crock-pot to lowest setting or just off about 30 minutes before serving and add the milk first, then the cheese. You dont want it boiling when you add the cheese or it will curdle, so add the milk first to cool it slightly. It will still be plenty warm to melt the cheese over the next half hour or so.
Garnish with tabasco sauce, crumbled bacon, sour cream....whatever.
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PS.
We made this just as it says. We didnt garnish with anything and it was very good. Kinda like Cheeseburger Macaroni soup without the macaroni....same kind of taste. I should have taken a picture, but i didnt. We will definitely make this again because it is very simple and quite good. We didnt have any (carbs dontcha know), but this would be awesome with a big loaf of crusty bread for dipping.

Watch us be all Farm-y

So, we had much bulldozing done at Rowe acres this past week and it basically made the yard look like a big, beautiful dirt pile. It will be very awesome when the grass ever comes up, but since the temperatures are in the low 70s and dropping into the high 30s at night, we are not overly confident in the germination process.

So, to prevent my beautiful, expensive, newly turned dirt from washing down the hill and into the road, we rented some heavy equipment this week and did some actual manual labor. I will admit that I (Jenni) kind of got out of some of it by having to go to work. The equipment arrived at about 4:30 pm on a Friday and I leave for work at about 5:30 pm, so I was just the photographer at this swanky soiree. I did my time later in the week by clearing limbs and getting a raging case of poison ivy.

The very best part of this whole thing was the training of Julia to throw the hay into the bucket thingy-- ( I dont know what this red thing is called, nor do i know what that bucket thing is called. I am no farmer. I DO know that this is not really "farm equipment" , so no farmers need call me out on this.)

Anyway, as Jackson is too short to throw the hay into the bucket and the hose thing was way too much for her to handle, Julia was called on to be the 'hay loader'.

She had a look of horror at the thought of it at first, but she quickly decided that it was much easier than being the 'hay shooter'. As you can see, she is inappropriately dressed but seemed to rather enjoy herself.
I complimented her hay throwing prowess at one point and got something to the effect of, "I have many hidden skills that you know nothing about" as a retort.

Jackson on the other hand was called on to be the 'grass seed flinger'. He was less than thrilled with this--especially with the lure of loud and unwieldy heavy equipment that could possibly remove your hand looming so near. He did a tremendous job though and (one day) when we have a lush and gorgeous lawn, we will owe it all to his skillful seed throwing. Definitely.