Crockpot Vegetable Beef (Venison) Soup

I love me some crockpot cookin'.  Nothing better than coming home and having zero prep time for a hot meal.  I also love me some good, hearty soup.  This soup is very versatile and you can substitute venison for beef without even noticing since there are so many flavors and spices in it!  I don't love venison alone but doctor it up and it's a great (cheap and available) staple in our house.

The base:

1 jar of spaghetti sauce (ragu or whatever you use)  I like to use plain or marinara but if you like the flavor of the "meat" or "spicy" or whatever, go for it.  It'll be the base flavor for your soup. 

2 cubes of beef bullion dissolved in 2 cups of water.  or you can use canned but the cubes are way cheaper.

Meat- I use a pound of venison steaks cut up into small cubes.  You can also use any cut of beef or even ground meat.  Heck, use whatever meat you want!  About a pound makes for frequent bites of meat.  Use more or less depending on  your circumstances.  Oh, and cook it up in a frying pan before adding it to the crockpot.

Vegetables and add-in's:

You can pretty much throw anything you have into this soup and you won't ruin it.  The only things I've found that make it "bad" are sweet potatoes (makes it sweet, very odd for soup) and zucchini (makes it bitter)  also, I once added too many carrots and wasn't pleased with the results.

Corn (one can or about half a bag of frozen)
Peas (one can or about half a bag of frozen)
Carrots- cut up (about 3 large or a handful of baby....a whole can was too much for me)
Potatoes (one can or about 2-3 regular sized)
Green beans (one can or about half a bag of frozen)
Celery (2-3 stalks, cut up)
Tomatoes ( a can or one or two cut up)
Beans ( a can of whatever you want-kidney, garbanzo, black...doesn't matter)
small pasta (about a half cup...add during the last hour of cooking!)  you can use orzo, pastina, alphabets, etc.
Spices! garlic powder, salt, pepper, oregano- anything you'd like, especially if your sauce is on the bland side.

Pick and choose what you want, what you have and go!  the only things you can't not add are the sauce and the broth....other than that, experiment away!  Throw it all in the crockpot on low for about 8 hours (if it's longer, it won't be ruined...if it's much shorter, the potatoes might not be cooked.)

:)

The recipe above will make about 6 decent sized bowls!