Italian Crockpot Stew with pasta By Diane Webb

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Italian Crockpot Stew with pasta By Diane Webb

I was going to say "easy" Italian Crockpot Stew but "easy" is implied if it's my recipe! Spring is here so I have another crop of tomatoes to look forward to.  Therefore, I need to use up our stewed tomatoes in the cabinet to make room for more.  I came up with this recipe this morning before church and--I kid you not--it took me no more than 15 minutes to have it cooking in the crock pot before we left.  That is including the time it took to brown the ground beef.  All of this is just what I happened to have in the cabinet.  I had taken out the hamburger meat yesterday thinking I'd make vegetable soup but ended up doing this instead.  I believe it would have worked with just broken up spaghetti noodles (uncooked) if that is all you have.

Put all of the following in your crock pot and cook on high for 3-4 hours. Serve with grated cheese or Parmesan cheese as a topping.  Garlic toast would have been nice with this as well but I did not think about that.

1 pound ground beef browned and drained
2 quarts stewed tomatoes
8 ounces pasta noodles (uncooked--we used Rotini which look like cork screws)
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning (dried)
2 teaspoons oregano (dried)
2 teaspoons basil (dried)
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder (because Emerson does not like onion chunks)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper