A Sentiment

God knew what He was doing when He sent a gentle breeze and brought a lovely butterfly to set my heart at ease. The happiness of your friendship and the gentleness of your words have touched my life in special ways and now I feel assured. Thank you for your loyalty and for reading everyday. I only hope you find things to make a happy day.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Soup

Here is a picture of a bowl of my soup. It is chock full of veggies and ground chuck. If you wanted a vegetarian soup...leave out the meat. Here is the slow cooker after we had our meal. It is has a 7 quart capacity. Lots left over for the freezer.
My Recipe:
I browned 1 1/2 lbs ground chuck in a large pan. As I was browning the meat, I was chopping the veggies and adding them to the pan. I tried to keep all but the potatoes about the same size. I cut those a little bigger. I used 6 carrots, two large onions, 3 parsnips, 3 stalks celery, 3 good sized Yukon gold potatoes. These veggies were added to the mixture and stirred... letting them soften a bit while on the stove. I put them in the slow cooker which had been set for 4 hours on high. Then I added a can of tomato soup, 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1 can butter beans with juice, 6 cups of chicken broth, 2 soup cans of water, 3 cloves garlic chopped. Then came the seasonings, 1 heaping tsp. sea salt, 1 tsp fresh ground pepper, a few shakes of Italian seasoning, a hefty tsp of beef soup base, and a couple shakes of red pepper. The slow cooker was set for 4 hours and the soup was done a little before that. I used Yukon golds because they hold up well in soups and stews.
This could be modified by just softening the veggies in butter and then putting them into the slow cooker and add more beans (maybe black beans and garbanzos ) some sort of pasta could be added at the end or even rice. Just thought...maybe barley. Just keep the liquid and seasonings pretty much the same.
This soup is a rich soup with a tomato broth. Lots of broth and veggies just softened. I served it with crackers, but a crusty french bread would be nice with it. Then you could mop up the remaining broth from the bottom of your bowl. We really enjoyed it. I got three dinners out of this recipe. We ate one today and the rest goes into the freezer.
This is where I am creative in the kitchen. I try to concoct my own recipes or take one that I've seen and give it a twist or two...making it my own. I put the recipe here so I could find it.. and use it again. So much easier that searching my recipe file or cookbooks. Someone asked me why I write out directions so completely. Experienced cooks probably don't need the directions to be this precise, but newer cooks might appreciate following an exact recipe. I hate it, when I get a recipe and I wonder...should that be covered or do you grease the sides of the pan? This is how I would want someone to give me a recipe.
Balisha
I just thought of something....clams would be great in this brothy soup. I would add them at the end of the cooking time.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can smell that soup right now! It looks so good and what a great comfort food for this time of the year. That's one reason I like having my cooking blog so I can look up a recipe so quickly online. The cakes in that e-mail were just awesome. I can't imagine the time it took to create some of them. I love changing recipes and adding my own ingredients. That's what makes cooking so much fun for me. You outdid yourself on this one. I will have to try it for sure and I know just where to get the recipe when I'm ready!

Roses and Lilacs said...

Sounds so good. I always add corn and peas to mine just because those are my two favorite veggies.

My Mom used to make beef veggie soup a lot in the winter. She always put a handful of those alphabet noodles in for us kids.
Marnie

Elenka said...

Oh, thank you for what looks like a great recipe. I have just copied it to save. Can't wait to try it.

Balisha said...

We really enjoyed this recipe. Hey, Elenka, How are things going?
Balisha

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

Sounds like a great cold weather dish! :)