Southwestern Quinoa and Black Bean Soup

Another requested recipe from my birthday party on Saturday was my Southwestern quinoa and  black bean soup.  I used a few online recipes as inspiration, but the final result wasn't really based on any one particular source, so this recipe is what I wrote down as my final dish in my new recipe notebook.  The notebook is a nice way to keep all of my recipes together rather than the scraps of paper in the junk drawer in our kitchen. I can't believe it took me this long to realize I should write down all of my recipes in a notebook to keep them all together. 

This soup is similar to chili, so you might want to serve it with traditional chili accompaniments like saltine crackers, cornbread, cheese, etc. 

Southwestern soup

Ingredients

• 28 oz crushed tomatoes
• 42 oz water or tomato juice
• 15 oz tomato sauce
• 14 oz petite diced tomatoes
• 1/2 onion, diced and sauteed
• 1/2 each red, yellow, and orange bell peppers 
• 2 cups black beans (or a 14oz can)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tablespoon cumin
• 1 Tablespoon chili powder
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
•  1/2 cup quinoa

Directions

Put all of the ingredients into the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours.