Vegetable Beef Soup. Make You Some.

TBI and I like to have large amounts of food around the house, because there are lots of days we don't feel like cooking, or even getting out a knife or saucepan. Sometimes, Kraft Mac and Cheese is too much work.

Right now there is a large casserole of pasta with sausage and tomato cream sauce (more on that later) in the garage fridge, but as TBI had eaten on that for a week, I decided it was time to add another dish to the menu.

I bought stew meat, which I totally consider cheating, and it is still totally acceptable, and had TBI put it in the crock pot in the morning, on WARM. Not low, not hot, WARM. Two packages of stew meat, a cup of beef broth from the box, pour in some balsamic vinegar and some worchestershire and a healthy sprinkling of McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning, and voila. Five hours later you have succulent, delicious meat for your soup. If TBI hasn't eaten it all, one morsel at at time, before you get home from work to assemble the soup.

Now: make the soup. Start by having TBI peel six or seven smallish red potatoes (I think they hold up better in a soup and don't get as mealy. You could also use a Yukon Gold to the same advantage) and three or four carrots. Chop up some celery, and don't be afraid to use the leafy tops; they're gonna bring a lot of flavor to the pot.

Pour an entire box of beef broth into the pot, and add three cups of water to make more volume. Cut up your potatoes fairly small, you don't want bigger-than-bite-size hunks in your soup, and add them in, with the celery, and the carrots that you have cut into hunks on the bias.

Add a can of diced tomatoes, undrained. Last night I used a can that already had "italian seasonings" in it; whatever you have will be fine. Then toss in whatever veggies you like. I had a can of whole green beans, half a bag of frozen corn, and half a bag of peas.

Now to add the meat. I skimmed the fat off the top of the liquid in the crock pot with a ladel, and then poured the whole thing in. You want that cooked broth and salty goodness going in your soup. You want a little of the fat going in too, if you are into flavor.

Toss a couple of bay leaves (I did three, I think they do something special for the broth, and more is always better, right?), salt to taste, but be careful because the meat is salty as is the broth, and pepper. I put in a healthy amount of basil, and a dash of sage for that earthy, peasant taste.

Put the lid on it, and simmer at medium heat until you fear it will start to boil or pop over, and then remove the lid. You can eat it as soon as the potatoes and carrots are done (about an hour) but the longer this stuff simmers on low heat, the more delicious it will be.

I purchased a loooooong and beautiful crusty loaf of bread, which I warmed right on the oven rack, and it was perfect with the soup. I was looking forward to making croutons out of it later but the kitties decided they were into artisan bread and stuck their fangs in it all over while we weren't looking. Maybe you will have better luck with your bread than I did.