'Tis the Season

For yet another soup recipe! This one is a great simple meatless meal, good for Fridays. And I think pretty much all of the ingredients will be in your pantry. From my favorite cookbook: Simply in Season.

Hearty Lentil Stew
4 c water
1 c dried lentils
1 c tomatoes, diced
4 large carrots, chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 t thyme
1/2 t marjoram
2 T dry sherry (optional)
Cook together until lentils and carrots are soft, 40-45 minutes.
1/4 c fresh parsley
2-3 T salt to taste
Stir in parsley with salt. Heat another minutes and serve, garnish with grated Swiss or Gruyere cheese.

I didn't use sherry, parsley or cheese and it was still delicious. Also note that it only gets better after sitting in the fridge. I thought it was fine at first but each leftover tastes better - now I would label it as delicious!!

Soup!

This is my first ever homemade beef soup. And it was the easiest meal I've ever made and quite tasty, too! Recipe from my Fix It and Forget It daily calendar.

Frances' Hearty Vegetable Soup

1 lb round steak, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes

3 cups water

2 potatoes, peeled and diced

2 onions, sliced

3 celery ribs, sliced

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

3 beef bouillon cubes

1/2 t dried basil

1/2 t dried oregano

1 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1 1/2 cups frozen veggies of your choice (suggested: peas, green beans, and corn)

1. Combine first 3 ingredients in slow cooker. Cover and cook on high about 6 hours (I only did 4 hours on low - so obviously timing is variable).

2. Add remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on high for 2 more hours or until meat and veggies are tender (I cranked the heat up to high from low and cooked about 3-4 hours, I think).

Beef Vegetable Soup

After advertising my Beef Veggie Soup on my regular blog and getting a couple of requests for the recipe, here it is! (Seriously nothing special. Basically just a bunch of canned veggies in beef broth.)

These are approximate amounts of what I use when I make a regular pot for dinner and a few leftovers. If I want to make enough for dinner and a good amount to freeze, I "double" everything and omit the potatoes because potatoes don't freeze well.

-A couple cups of water in a big pot
-1 pkg. of stew meat (I cut mine into smaller chunks so it seems like it's more meat. I'm cheap.)
-a handful of baby carrots cut up into slices or chunks
-one small onion, or half of a big onion, chopped into small pieces
-a handful of potatoes, peeled and chopped into big pieces (Especially if you plan to simmer your soup all day, you want the potato chunks a little thicker, otherwise they will boil away.)

Get all that stuff chopped and in the pot while the water is starting to boil. Along with all those things I add
-a good helping of salt.

Now the canned stuff... (dump the whole can of everything--don't drain!)

-1 can of lima beans (half cans are cheaper and if you don't particularly like beans, that's the way to go.)
-1 can cut green beans
-1 can petite diced tomatoes (sometimes I use two cans because I like tomatoey soups, but I drain the second can.)
-1 can whole-kernel corn (sometimes I use only 2/3 or 1/2 the can)

Bring it all to a boil and add
-2 cubes of beef boullion.

I don't typically add spices to my veggie soups. I have some general Greek seasoning that I sometimes toss in, and I have some Tony's Creole seasoning that I used in this batch. But really, salt and pepper (I don't even always use pepper) are enough.

Get it boiling nicely, then simmer for some hours until the carrots and potatoes are soft.

The end!