Home-Style Vegetable Beef Soup

I tried this recipe this week. My family really liked it. I got it from the All Recipes site. It was very easy, tasty, and thought I would share it. The vegetables can easily be changed for personal taste. It makes a lot--serves 10

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef (You could leave it out for a veggie meal, but you will have Vegetable Soup)
1 onion, chopped
6 red potatoes, finely diced (I even left their little red skins on.....worked fine.)
5 carrots, sliced thin
1/2 cup water
1 (15 ounce can whole kernal corn, drained
2 cups frozen green beans
1 (46 ounce bottle tomato-vegetable juice cocktail (I used low sodium V-8 juice. I don't drink this stuff, but Mr. Wonderful couldn't even tell it was the base for the soup.)
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt ( I left it out)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:
1. In a large pot over medium heat, cook beef, onion and potatoes, covered, until beef is no longer pink and potaotes are tender, 10-15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, placed carrots and 1 /2 cup water in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high 5 minutes, until tender.
3. Drain beef mixture and return to pot with carrots, corn, green beans, juice cocktail, water, salt and pepper. Simmer over low heat 30 minutes, until flavors are well blended and soup is hot.

Note: I microwaved the frozen green beans until they were defrosted. I put the V-8 juice in my crockpot and added the pepper while the beef mixture was cooking. I added the beef mixture to my crockpot when it was drained, added the vegetables and cooked it on high around one hour, then put it on low as had no clue when Mr Wonderful would be popping in for dinner.