ZESTY ITALIAN HAMBURGER HELPER SOUP

Steps:

• Spray the inside of a Dutch oven or soup kettle, with a no-stick cooking spray.
• In the Dutch oven or kettle, add the ground beef, and season beef with a bit of black pepper. (Do not add salt to this recipe!).
• Brown the ground beef three quarters of the way, over medium heat; stirring to break up the meat.
• Add the onions, and sprinkle onions with a bit of the pepper, then add the garlic.
• Finish browning the beef and cooking the onions and garlic, this will just take a minute or two.
• In the meantime, cook the frozen green beans in a microwave, till they are about three quarters of the way done; drain beans and set them aside. (Note: I sprinkled the green beans with a bit of black pepper, before microwaving them.).
• Add the following ingredients to the kettle of cooked beef, the seasoning packet from the boxed hamburger helper, the beef broth, stewed tomatoes, the Rotel Tomatoes, zucchini, sliced baby carrots, whole kernel corn, the cooked green beans, and the Italian seasoning.
• Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer, cover, and simmer the soup for 10 minutes.
• Uncover the kettle, stir the soup, and add the package of penne pasta, that's included in the box of hamburger helper.
• Bring soup to a second boil, then reduce the heat to a low simmer, cover, and simmer the soup for 15 minutes.
• Remove soup from heat, stir the soup, and serve.
• Note: I noticed after making this soup and using the 6.4 oz. box of Italian Lasagna Hamburger Helper (with the mini lasagna noodles in the box) verses the Zesty Italian (which adds mini penne pasta to the box), the next day when I reheated the soup, I had to add a bit more liquid, as the soup had thickened, and it had the consistency of a goulash. Since the mini lasagna noodles seem to absorb the liquid, I added more broth (a 1/2 cup) plus I added some V-8 Spicy Hot Vegetable Juice.