Far Side Cooks: Vegetable Beef Soup

I like homemade vegetable beef soup, Far Guy will tolerate one bowl a couple of times a year.  Usually I make it three times a year. Spring, Fall when all the veggies are fresh out of the garden..and in the dead of winter…the extreme comfort food. 

There has been no real recipe..until now.  I made it on one of those 20 something below zero mornings when I knew I was going to need some comfort later in the day.  I took the time to measure everything. It is finally a real recipe, complete with lots of photos!  The grand girls love my soup..and will someday want the recipe.  Now they can make it “Just like Grandma used to.”

1 1/2 pounds of lean beef..like a rump roast

3 beef bullion cubes

28 ounces of whole tomatoes

3 cups of cabbage shredded

1/3 cup onion finely chopped

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

6 cups of water (plus or minus a cup)

4 cups of diced rutabaga

4 cups of carrot coins

8 cups of diced potatoes

The very first thing you need to do is get out your Dutch oven..I have two of them..one is stainless and one is cast iron.  When I make a double batch I use both of them.  The recipe above fits nicely in one Dutch oven pot.

Throw the roast in the pot and add about 2 cups of water, bake at 350 degrees for about 4 hours until it is nice and tender and can be broken apart easily. Move the pot to one of the burners on your stove top..turn the burner on low.

Add the three beef bullion cubes.

I like these whole tomatoes..actually I prefer to cook some up that I got from the garden..but these will do.

Now pay attention this is the most important part. I do not like hunks or chunks of cooked tomato in anything, as a kid I picked them out, as an adult I still pick them out..or gag.  My children never knew there were real tomatoes in the soup…. So you have to go to an antique shop and buy yourself one of these things..I am not sure what it is called.

You dump the can of tomatoes in here and then proceed to make your own tomato sauce.  Now I bet you are wondering why?  Why doesn’t she just use tomato sauce.. well because she has never tried it that way and she wouldn’t want to ruin a whole kettle of soup! 

All the clumpy stuff and the seeds are left in this fine antique tomato sauce maker thingy, and they get thrown out.   It is the pits to clean..but that is a small price to pay for no clumps and no seeds.

   Stir..and this is what it looks like.

Shred the cabbage first. You will not need all of a small head..you can make coleslaw with the remainder of it.

Then add the finely diced onion.

Then add the brown sugar, salt, pepper and about 4 cups of water.

Rutabagas..one of the veggies that makes you feel all warm and cozy inside:)

Carrots..see the pot is getting fuller!

Last but not least the potatoes.  I like red potatoes and use them almost exclusively.  Why?  Because one Fall I was a USDA Potato Inspector in a plant the took in only Russet Potatoes.

Stir it all..and let it simmer until the rutabaga and carrots are done.

Enjoy!! I wait for it too cool down, then it goes into the fridge and later I package it into single servings that can be frozen and then heated up for lunch or for a quick supper:)