Failure Fajita Soup, Delicious Pumpkin Pecan Waffles, and a Pantry Clean-up

Hi everyone! It is so hard to believe that fall is in full swing when it's in the high 70s here. So I broke out the slow cooker. I really wanted to make taco soup, but I didn't have taco seasoning or any pinto beans so I figured I'd substitute in other ingredients, cross my fingers, and hope for the best.

This is what I got:


My recipe:

1.5 pounds ground beef
1 chopped onion
1 bag stir fry vegetables
2 cans of corn, with juice
2 cans of baked beans, with juice
1 can rotel
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1 packet fajita seasoning
1/2 packet ranch dressing mix


1. Brown the ground beef and onion together in a large skillet. Pour the mix into a colander and cook the stir fry vegetables for 2 minutes in the remaining grease.

2. Put the meat, onions, and vegetables in the slow cooker. Add all the other ingredients finishing with the seasoning mixes. Mix well and cook on low for 8 hours. All done!

My honest opinion:

There are very few times I have disaster in my kitchen and this, unfortunately, was one of them. My advice, don't try it! Stick to my regular taco soup recipe which is the same as above except pinto beans instead of baked beans, taco seasoning instead of fajita, and NO stirfry vegetables. Ugh, one bite and that stuff went straight to the bin!

Instead, we had pumpkin pecan waffles!

The basic recipe comes from Here.

Ingredients:
1 cup white flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
 1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup pumpkin butter
1/4 cup pecans, chopped

1. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls.
2. Mix the two together slowly until just barely combined.
3. Allow to sit for about 5 minutes to thicken before pouring into waffle maker...in batches! Not all at once. Fill bottom side of waffle maker until it is barely full, not heaping, otherwise it'll just leak out when it cooks.
4. Cook until waffle maker isn't steaming a lot and the top is crisp. Then you eat!

Oh, and finally, a before and after of my pantry. Before it was a mess and I had no clue what we had. So after months of just throwing more stuff in there, I finally decided to clean it out and organize it. Surprisingly, it only took about 30 minutes!

After, I found out we had 17 jars of peanut butter, 5 bags/boxes of rice, 20 cans of tuna, and 7 boxes of cereal. But it's clean!

How exactly does one use 17 jars of peanut butter? If you have any recipes, I'd be so grateful!

Blessings,
Miranda