Best Veggie Soup Ever

'The Hubs' was out of town at a bicycle race yesterday so he was grabbing quick food where he could find it and in the evening I treated a friend to a restaurant meal for her birthday--so no cooking for the family. I therefore concentrated on finishing up the beef veggie soup that I started the day before. Time and again I'm asked for the recipe for my veggie soup. I have to chuckle at that---who uses a recipe for veggie soup? I'm reminded of all the grandmas I've heard of who never used recipes--just a pinch and a handful of this and that. But, certain friends insisted I try to write it down, so I've managed to at least outline the basics. So, for you, Megan, when I'm gone you can make it for your family by doing this:

YUMMY BEEF VEGETABLE SOUP

When I make this soup I make a big batch. I use an 8-quart kettle.

1-1 1/2 lbs of stew meat (if you're a major carnivore, use 2 lbs). Sometimes I brown it in a little olive oil, sometimes I don't)

Place meat in stew pot, add 2 envelopes of dry Lipton onion soup mix and 2 quarts of beef broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook at low boil until the meat is tender--maybe 2 hours, adding liquid as needed.

Potatoes and carrots: 'The Hubs' loves carrots more than potatoes so if the soup is for us I put in lots of carrots--maybe 3 lbs. When I make the soup for others I just try to get a good balance. Yesterday I used 2 lbs of carrots, sliced about 1/4" thick and maybe 5 or 6 modest-size Yukon Gold potatoes cut into 1" cubes. Sometimes I add celery, sliced about 1/2" thick. Add veggies to the kettle.

Add 2 12-ounce cans of V-8 Juice and enough liquid (water or beef broth) to cover the veggies and cook at a low boil until tender. I don't want mushy veggies so I time this step carefully. I set a timer for 10 min. and check the potatoes and the carrots. Yesterday, after 10 min., the carrots were still a little crunchy but the potatoes were done. Uh oh. I was a little fearful that the potatoes would dissolve if I cooked them longer. That actually happened to me once. I delivered a pot of soup to a friend and noticed there were no potatoes in it....and I had added a lot of potatoes to the pot. I evidently left them at the low boil too long and they disappeared. The variety of potatoes does make a difference. Russets and reds are probably the safer choice. I used Yukon Gold because that's all I had and they seemed to cook faster. I set the timer for an additional 3 min. and the carrots were then tender and the potatoes seemed about the same so it worked out fine.

At this point I add the canned veggies: corn, green beans, diced tomatoes. I start out adding one can (15.5 oz) of each. If there's room in the pot I might add more of one or all three of those. As soon as these are heated through, the soup is ready to eat. I do taste test it. I rarely need to add salt, as the dry soup mix has plenty and seems to season it to my taste. If it tastes flat I'll give it a few shakes of onion and garlic powder and/or add some concentrated broth (a new product I recently discovered--it comes in little 6-paks, each containing about a Tablespoon of jelled broth)--maybe more V-8. It just depends on personal taste.

I like elbow macaroni in my soup but my husband does not, so I sometimes will cook a little pot of macaroni and add it to just my bowls of soup. I have a friend who doesn't consider veggie soup a finished product unless it contains chopped cabbage, so I'll add that if the soup is going to her.

I can't say for sure but I think what makes this soup special is the dry onion soup mix and the V-8 juice.

Enjoy! It's a real treat in cold winter months but truly wonderful anytime.

Taking a Stab at Recording....Again!

Obviously I was living in Fantasyland when I was certain I could keep a daily record of the food goings on in my kitchen. Life just keeps getting crazier and crazier. Many trips to see the grandchildren---an 8 hour drive. And, now we've purchased a small condo near them so we will have our own digs--all well and good, except the place needs some updating, so there will be more trips to oversee/do the sprucing up. Add in a trip to Oklahoma for a family reunion and a tent camping trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone and I foresee many days when activity in the kitchen will be nil.

So, as in the past, I am attempting to reduce my food inventory--most of it purchased at my guilty pleasure, a local Discount Grocery--small, tucked away in an inconspicuous locale. Such fun seeing what they might have on any given day and figuring out what to create with my purchases. Over two weeks ago I bought several beautiful bell peppers--orange and yellow. I used some but then we left town for 8 days and I was doubtful that the four remaining would be useable by the time I was back home. I needn't have worried. Even three days after our return home, they were perfect. So, tonight I decided to make stuffed peppers. It's not a favorite dish of ours so I pondered how to make it attractive to 'the hubs.' Didn't take much thinking: hot and spicy. Everything came from the DG. A pound of ground beef, a Utah onion, a can of extra-hot Rotel tomatoes, a cup of prepared Uncle Ben's brown rice, hot and spicy tomato sauce and grated Mexican blend cheese. There were 8 pepper halves and 'the hubs' ate 5 of them. I'm on a deprivation diet so didn't eat any of them. The 3 remaining will be lunch tomorrow. The unused rice will be added to a large pot of veggie beef soup I'm making to take to two friends who are dealing with health problems.

Speaking of the soup, I used 2 quarts of beef broth, 2 envelopes of dry onion soup mix, 2 cans of corn (one yellow, one white), 2 cans of green beans, 1 can of diced tomatoes, 2 pounds of carrots (10-cents per pound at the DG today!), Yukon Gold potatoes, and celery. All of the previously listed ingredients came from the DG. The beef was purchased elsewhere, as was the V-8 juice I'll add. Many cans came off the pantry shelves but I also purchased other items, so the shelves aren't looking bare yet.

What will be subtracted from the shelves tomorrow??

A Brand New Food Year

I enjoyed my month-long hiatus from keeping my food record but it is time to begin anew. It's too bad I fell off the food-log wagon right after Thanksgiving because I've used a whole passel of things from my larder (my choice of words, no doubt, tells my age). I made several batches of treats that used a lot of the foodstuffs on my shelves, all of which came from my little discount grocery store (DGS). I do feel proprietary toward that cute little store--that's why I call it "my" DGS. I wouldn't have much of a social life if it weren't for my almost daily shopping visits there.

But, I'm going to skip trying to list those items used in the Christmas yummies and begin with tonight's dinner: salmon fillets on the grill, chopped salad with Asian peanut dressing, sugar snap peas, carrot slices with butter and pure Vermont maple syrup. With the exception of the salad ALL other items listed came from the DGS. Can't say the volume in my fridge or on my shelves has decreased by much, though. There are still snap peas in the crisper waiting to be cooked for another meal. Just a small portion of the butter and maple syrup were used, so the butter dish and the bottle are taking up the same amount of space in the fridge. And, the carrots---well, in a weak moment at the DGS this afternoon I purchased 5 pounds--yes, 5 POUNDS!!--of cleaned, sliced and ready-to-use carrots. They were only $1.89 and, obviously, I'm a sucker for a deal. And, I have probably 4 1/2 lbs. of carrots remaining in the crisper of the fridge. Oh, my! I'm fond of carrots but I can't imagine eating 5 lbs. of cooked carrots, no matter how much butter, syrup, and brown sugar I slather on them.

Got interrupted last night so am now finishing the Jan. 2 post. Hubby loves my beef veggie soup and he especially likes it loaded with carrots, so I need to get going on a vat of soup. I'm also searching for recipes that use carrots (maybe cooked and mashed and added to something like banana bread---except it would be carrot bread). Most baked goods call for shredded carrots but mine are already cut into round slices, so grating isn't an option. The Internet should provide me with plenty of options for depleting my lifetime carrot supply.

Speaking of my weakness for a deal, I also have 10 half pint cartons of heavy whipping cream looking for a use. I could happily drink it. Some people crave potato chips or peanuts or Cheetos when they're feeling snack-happy. For me, it's cream. Not ice cream. Cream. I like it on cereal, over a bowl of graham crackers (hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it), in certain soups, in some alcoholic drinks, stirred into my skimmed milk (yeah, I know--sort of defeats the purpose, huh?), poured over fresh berries. I'm hopeless. But, they were buy one, get one free...a quart of heavy whipping cream for $1.60!! That amount would cost almost $8 at the regular supermarket. I just couldn't leave it on the shelf at that price. Yes, the sell-by date has passed but the higher the fat content, the longer the shelf life. I'll drink it/use it until it smells sour (if it ever does), then I'll bake something with it. My grandparents didn't have refrigeration (no electricity) until they were very old people. Times were tough, families were big, tossing out food was not an option. Getting rid of sour milk would've been a sacrilege--so Grandma made a cake, or cornbread or other down-home delicacy. I learned from my grandparents to make-do. Of course, my internist might not approve of any of my intended uses for the glut of heavy cream in the fridge but that's what statins are for, right?

Will report on my fabulous talent for food inventiveness later on.

I'm a Lost Cause

Well, so far, since promising myself I'd keep a daily record of the foods I use from my pantry in order to clear the shelves a bit, I have learned at least one thing: I break promises, even to myself. I don't know what the heck happened. I have been cooking--not every night, mind you. There have been several restaurant meals mixed in with the home cooked ones. Still, I have been mindful of using ingredients and products I have on hand, trying hard to plan meals with those food items in mind. I have just failed to log in my progress. Now, with Christmas here and people in and out and time being in short supply, I need to take the pressure off myself and decide to give it a new go in the New Year. So, there! I've decided. No more writing (unless I really want to) until 2013. Aaahh. I feel so much better.

Life Gets in the Way

It is amazing to me how life can get in the way of something I've committed to stick to---like posting daily to this blog.

On Wednesday a.m., while drying one load of clothes and with a load of wet towels in the washer, my dryer died. Fortunately, the load in the dryer was far enough along that they were mostly dry---the towels, though, were another story. I consulted with a repairman who advised that a service call and the repair of the most minimum of the possible problems would cost about $110 (and, of course, would go up from there). Considering the age of the dryer, he felt the most prudent course would be to purchase a new dryer (no, he doesn't sell new dryers).

In this household we have to research everything to death, read reviews, etc. before we purchase anything. Even with 2 of us on separate computers, it took most of the day to not only find what we thought was the best value, but to make calls hoping to find one in stock somewhere. No luck there. So, late that afternoon we purchased one from Home Depot. It had the bells and whistles I wanted and was on sale for $200 off the regular retail price (they had the same brand with fewer bells and whistles selling for the very same sale price but only $100 less than the regular retail price...that's a mystery). The downside is that it can't be delivered until a week from today. I put the wet towels in a big lawn and leaf bag and hauled them to my friend Joan's house and dried them there....and, I get an enforced break from doing laundry for a whole week.

After the hard work of researching and purchasing the dryer, hubby declared (while still in Home Depot) that he was starving---and when he's starving, that means he can't wait even a little bit to eat. He's a bicycle racer who trains hard every day and burns up lots of calories and has a super-fast metabolism. I, on the other hand, don't exercise much and rarely get hungry because I must have the metabolism of a boa constrictor, who eats a big meal and doesn't have to eat again for 7 weeks. Anyway, we popped in to a nearby Mexican restaurant and had dinner---no cooking and no decreasing my food inventory that night.

Then, last night (Thursday) I took my mom to a Kenny Rogers concert at a nearby event center. She's 89 years old and moves slowly. We had the opportunity to eat dinner in a restaurant at the event center and that's what I thought would be best for us. That way, I could drop her at the door before the biggest part of the crowd arrived, go park the car, walk the distance back to the entrance and then we'd be in the building an hour and a half before showtime. It worked out very well. I'd never eaten in the restaurant before and it was a very nice experience. The menu was fairly limited but adequate and the food was delicious. So, another night of no cooking, no inventory reduction (I noticed my husband had picked up a pizza from Pizza Hut, so he was no help in depleting the food glut).

Maybe tonight will afford some progress.

Slow Food Day Progresses to Asian Food Day

Yesterday (Mon., November 26) was a slow food day. I'd planned to bake bar cookies for the crew at the discount grocery but boring, although necessary, tasks got in the way---same story today. Maybe they'll get their treats tomorrow (will try to bake them tonight to avoid unexpected interruptions tomorrow).

Last night's dinner was sirloin steaks on the grill. Hubby took the tank for a fill-up so we are once again cooking with gas---well, he is. I actually do a good job of grilling but I don't remind him so I can get a night "off" from cooking. I did steam 2 small bags of a fresh cauliflower/broccoli combo and rustled up a batch of hashed brown potatoes (frozen). They were both from the DGS, and there's a little more room in the fridge/freezer now.

Tonight's dinner was a fusion of several Asian dishes: vegetable spring rolls, chicken-ginger mini-wontons and a Thai peanut stir-fry dish with rice noodles (all from the freezer and all from the DGS). My main guy is a big time carnivore, so I added some chicken to the stir-fry. It was from a bag of frozen pre-cooked fajita chicken with onions and red and green peppers. The bag said there were Mexican seasonings but, honestly, I couldn't taste them. But, after searing the taste buds right off my tongue with the Chinese hot mustard (made from a powder--very hot) that I drizzled over all my food, I couldn't taste much of anything---but my sinuses are certainly a lot clearer. To add bulk to the noodle dish I also added a can of stir-fry veggies and opened a little jar of sweet and sour sauce to cool off the hot mustard. So, 2 items off my selves but, unfortunately, that little jar of sauce will move into the fridge, for who knows how long?

I'm making some progress on depleting my over-stock of victuals, which is the point of keeping a record BUT I really thought I would be spending next to nothing on foodstuffs while trying to cook with what's on hand. That hasn't exactly been the case. I do think that, over all, food expenditures have decreased but are still more than I thought they would be. I think the problem is that I consider the DGS a treasure trove of goodies and if I see something I haven't seen before or haven't seen in a while and I know I love it, I have to buy it because who knows when or if it will show up there again. Trying to exercise restraint.

Bonanza!

Woo hoo! Made a dent in my food collection tonight by making chili for dinner. Off the shelves came 3 cans of beans: Pintos, San Antonio (combo of pintos and red kidney) and Ranch Style pintos with jalapenos; 1 can diced tomatoes with onion, 1 can Rotel tomatoes with green chilies, 1 small can tomato sauce and 1 packet of chili seasoning. The freezer is also minus a pound of ground beef. All items were purchased at the discount grocery (DGS).

A word about my favorite little store. It doesn't have cooled produce displays such as we see in chain supermarkets. In fact, it doesn't always have produce at all. When there is produce, it is in delivery boxes stacked against the front wall. So, I never know if there will be produce and if there is, I never know what it will be. That's the fun of it---every visit is like a treasure hunt! Sometimes the produce has seen better days, other times it is perfect and sometimes in-between---and frequently it is organic. We are currently working our way through a flat (12 clam shell containers) of beautiful big blackberries: $0.79 per 6-oz container.

Hadn't made this squash casserole in quite some time but it was a big hit at our Thanksgiving dinner this year.

SQUASH AND STUFFING BAKE

2 lb. yellow squash

1 c. (or so) grated carrot

1 onion, chopped

1 can cream of chicken soup

16 oz. sour cream

1 pkg. Stove Top stuffing (corn bread)

1/2 stick butter (melted)

Salt & pepper to taste

Slice squash 1/4" thick and cover with salted water in saucepan; cook until just tender. Drain well (I leave it in a colander in the sink for 15 min., or so). For the carrots (which are mainly for color), I buy a pkg. of shredded carrot in the salad-fixings area of the produce section. Microwave carrots in some water until tender (6 min. in my old microwave---less time in a newer one) and drain well. In large mixing bowl, combine well the onion, soup, and sour cream. Fold in carrots, then gently fold in squash. Pour into a large (13" x 9" or 3-quart) baking dish. In a med. bowl, toss the contents of the stuffing package with the melted butter until stuffing is well moistened. Scatter evenly over top of casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until bubbly and topping is golden.