Winter Veggie Soup (with Beef)

Okay, this is a modified recipe I grew up with.

It's one we sort of wing because my mom never wrote it down. You just kind of chuck it all into the pot. One of those.

You need a large pot. We use a large copper bottomed stock pot.

First you are making your stock/broth.

We picked up a beef neck bone and about 2 lbs of beef stew meat from the butcher yesterday. This morning I marinated these in diced garlic, Italian seasoning, salt & pepper, 8 oz merlot and some olive oil for about an hour and half to 2 hours.

We added the beef to the pot with roughly chopped mirepoix (carrots, celery, onion) and covered the whole with water to a depth of two or three inches. We also added a couple tbsp. of beef base. We are simmering the whole for about three hours low and slow to create a nice soup base and cook the beef down to tender.

Then we're going to strain the base, put the meat in a container, remove as much meat off the neck bones as we can, and puree the remaining vegetable matter to add back to the base and use a thickener. We will moderate how much we add back in. Eyeball it.

Then we'll put back in the meat with a chopped assortment of vegetables. It's traditional with this soup to always add tomatoes. We will add a can of crushed where my parents compromised and added whole (my dad doesn't like tomatoes so he could avoid the whole ones; my husband doesn't like them either, but he likes the way the crushed flavor through). It is also tradition to add about half a head of chopped cabbage. And we will also put in cut up potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, leeks (my son wanted these because of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs). Basically, throw in more or less whatever combo of veggies floats your boat.

We will also add some pearl barley as another thickener. You could likely use a small pasta like orzo instead.

I almost forgot ... Cook the vegetables and barley or pasts until the vegetables are for tender and the barley is done and serve.

This soup keeps well for leftovers all week, and it was one of my favorite growing up memories. Whenever mom and dad put on the big soup pot and got out the crackers, fruit and cheese, it meant we were going to have a midwinter game day with cards, board games and general family good times.

I make a big pot and freeze it in small containers. Also, there are wonderful wild winter herbs everywhere, so I usually pack several in a cheese cloth bag and simmer with the soup and pull them out before serving. They are antibiotics and full of vitamins and mineral. As always make sure you properly identify what your eating.

Yum. But for a difference and to make gluten free I suggest adding buckwheat goats or whatever the whole version of the seed is called instead of barley. Buckwheat goats are so yummy and full of protein. But hey I should stop pushing gluten free. Sounds delicious. I love a good soup. Keep warm over winter while I enjoy my summer,although it is raining today.

a reply to: Cloudbuster

Technically, you can make it all veggie too. Just make the stock all vegetable, use veggie base instead of beef base.

It's a pretty forgiving soup.

You can even go with either lamb or goat instead of beef.

How fortuitous. I was just searching for a recipe like this. Ive been sick and craving some home style soup. Will give this a try and report back with my findings

Reminds me a bit of my mom's veggie soup. We love tomatoes so she used a large can of tomato juice in the mix.

Cabbage was always in there as well as potatoes, celery, onion, carrots and beef.

God I miss here and her cooking, I never learned to make her soup and now that I'm really craving it, I'm regretting that.

sounds more like a stew than a soup. It does sound good though. There is a lot of flavor in neck bones, much more than in other cuts of meat like sirloin stew meat. My wife likes the stew meat cut up but I would rather keep the sirloin steaks and make soups or stews from soup bones. Short ribs make pretty good stew also but neckbones are more tasty. Oxtail has it's own taste but it makes some kickin soups too. Sort of like the same taste as the neckbones but a little creamier.

I will try this for dinner tonight! It's storming like crazy here so this will go down a treat I'm sure!

Yeah it's raining cats and dogs even my fish are drowning. Maybe a make some soup too. Might have to be chicken instead of beef. a reply to: virbjek