I am so glad that the weather is cooling down because one of my favorite things to make is homemade vegetable beef soup.
I splurged on a really nice piece of beef with lots of meat and quite a bit of fat. Stew beef all cut up also works well for this but it is quite lean and you need some fat for flavor. That is why in my opinion, venison is not good in soup although it is fine for other dishes. I put some olive oil in the bottom of my really big soup pot and heated the beef up at high heat to sear it and give it a brown coating.
I pulled the meat out, covered it and set it on a plate and then sauteed chopped onion in the beef drippings. To this I then added the whole big piece of beef and two cartons of beef broth. I had also purchased three rib bones and added those to the pot. Beef soup bones are great to simmer the meat with. They add flavor and nutrition but they are hard to find at the store. That is why I tried the rib bones. After simmering, I took the meat off these bones, added it to the pot and threw them out. The meat was just covered with liquid ( add water to cover the meat if needed) and then simmered for over an hour.
The meat was cooked by now but I didn't want to cut it up and dry it out so I took it out, covered it up again and cut up all these vegetables- potatoes, carrots, celery and zucchini. This is how much I used of each. You can use as much or as little as you want to.
This is the zucchini all cut up. This stuff is delicious in soup. By then the meat had cooled some so I cut it all up into small pieces for soup. I took the gristle off but I didn't skim the soup because there really wasn't excess fat- just the right amount.
Cabbage is fantastic in soup or in anything!
If I had planned ahead, I would have soaked dried beans (any kind) the night before to cook and throw in, but I didn't think of it and used a large can of black beans. I often will mix a couple of cans of different beans. I like a wide variety of different vegetables and beans.
I also used this cool product that cost only fifty cents- Black barley. I think it was seeing this package and buying it that gave me such a strong hankering for soup in the first place!
At this point, I added the large can of vegetable juice which is generic V-8. That makes the broth really good. Water can be added at any time if you need it.
Other ingredients added were corn and whole tomatoes, frozen in this case, but canned are fine. Lima beans are GREAT in soup but not green beans. If I have leftover rice, I throw that in.
Salt and pepper are what you need and also chili powder, Italian seasoning and a little sugar!
This recipe made enough to feed a soup kitchen so I immediately froze two large containers of it for another day. After serving it the first night in the big pot, I put it into the crockpot the next day to cook on low and be ready for lunch and or dinner. Serve with crackers and enjoy!
