Because it has been requested, and because I have nothing more compelling to write about, and because I have very little shame and even less pride, I present the recipe for the soup I made tonight. Any suggestions for improvement would be welcome, but I doubt it would turn out any better than mine did. (Okay, maybe I have a little pride.) It serves a whole bunch of people, which means that there are leftovers aplenty. I probably won’t freeze any though. I’ll probably just eat it.

This is what I used. Any ingredients can be substituted for something similar or something completely different. Amounts could be changed to suit individual tastes. Some things could be left out completely. This is just the barebones outline of what I like to call— Well, I don’t really have a name for it.

Ingredients:
One 16-ounce jar of salsa, any kind, any degree of heat
Three teaspoons of chili powder
Two boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized cubes
About this much (holds hands eight or ten inches apart) sausage, sliced the way you slice sausage
Two cans (equaling a little less than four cups) of chicken broth
One can of diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted, but I also like Mexican or Italian style)
One can of black beans (but really, any beans), rinsed and drained so as not to be so gross

All of the above goes into the crock pot on high for about three hours, maybe a little less (maybe a little more).

After about three hours (more or less), stir in one of those small cans of tomato paste (unless you like your soup more watery than I do) and turn the crock pot down to low.

In about 45 more minutes (more or less), ladle the soup into a bowl, because it’s done. Top with a handful of shredded cheddar cheese and a couple of dollops of sour cream, to cool it down and cream it up. (Optional, as is everything else.)

That’s it! Side dishes are up to you. I had some leftover buttermilk biscuits with it, and a bottle of Full Sail amber ale from Hood River, Oregon (because it was on sale at Oliver’s). Plus a green salad about an hour before. And one fun-size Snickers for dessert. (See above, no shame.)

This is a combination of several recipes that I got from various sources, but the main one is the Southwestern Chicken Soup from the Tastefully Simple slow cooker cookbook. I like it with their Roasted Tomato Salsa, but I didn’t have any so I used a jar of salsa I had in the cupboard. I did use their Wahoo Chili seasoning blend, so I’m really only assuming that chili powder would work as a substitute. But then, I make a lot of assumptions when I cook. They don’t always work out, but what the heck, take a chance, eh?