Spicy Cheeseburger Soup

I have quite a collection of cookbooks, most of them have been given to me by family or friends.  I have several that are my favorites and cook out of all the time but needless to say there are recipes that I haven't tried yet even out of my favorite books.  I am really good about marking recipes that I have made with how I changed them or sometimes I write the date and/or occasion in the margins.  This helps me track what I've made and if we liked it or not.  I've also given several of my cookbooks to my daughters and they can see the how I made something by my notes I've made on the recipe.  This Spicy Cheeseburger Soup is one of those recipes that is in one of my favorite books and I have never tried it before this past February.  I love making soup and was looking through my cookbooks for something to make for dinner with supplies that I already had in my refrigerator and freezer and this one fit the bill plus sounded good.  It was so yummy, my husband said it's now one of his favorite soups that I've made.  At my house, I'm known as the "Soup Queen".  I make a lot of yummy soups with a wide variety of ingredients but especially lots of vegetables and my homemade broth. This soup was really easy and the leftovers were great for lunches, it heats up well in the microwave.  The recipe called for a chopped jalapeno pepper and cayenne pepper to make it spicy but I just used sweet peppers and some red chili flakes instead so mine was only a little spicy. I added my go to vegetables of chopped zucchini and yellow squash to the recipe.  The more veggies the better is my motto.

Here's the recipe:

Spicy Cheeseburger Soup

2 lbs. ground hamburger meat, browned and drained

2 c water

2 c cubed peeled potatoes

1/2 to 1 c chopped carrots

1 chopped onion

1 clove minced garlic

1/2 c chopped sweet peppers or 1 jalapeno

2 T sofrito (recipe in earlier blog post)

1 chopped zucchini

1 chopped yellow squash

1/2 t red chili flakes

1/2 to 1 t each seasoned salt and pepper

1 beef bouillon

2 T yellow mustard

3 T flour

2 c milk

2 c shredded cheddar cheese

optional, top with crumbled cooked bacon

In large pot, add a little water, about 1/4 c, flour, onion, garlic, peppers, sofrito and red chili flakes and cook until tender and flour combined.  Add rest of water and vegetables plus salt, pepper and bouillon and cook until veggies are tender, about 20 minutes.  Add cooked meat, milk, cheese and yellow mustard, cook until heated through and bubbly.  Can top servings with crumbled cooked bacon if desired.

Enjoy 

Bamah