Brown the ground beef, garlic and onion; drain. (If you use onion powder, put it in the ground beef AFTER it has been drained.) Put in crockpot; sprinkle all seasoning packets on top of meat. Drain and rinse beans and add. Add the ENTIRE contents of the Rotel and corn, including the water. Cover and cook in crock pot on low for 8 – 10 hours or on high for 4 – 5 hours.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream, grated Mexican-blend cheeses, diced fresh tomatoes, sliced black olives and/or thinly sliced scallions. Crumble restaurant-style white tortilla chips into the soup right before serving. Freezes well!

*You can put the crockpot on low before you go to work and it will be ready when you get home at dinnertime! If you need to rush it up, put crockpot on high.

For added health benefits, you can brown the ground beef by itself, drain it and then run it under HOT or WARM water to get rid of excess fat; drain very well. Then you will return it to the skillet to cook with garlic and onion or onion powder and resume recipe at that point.