Mom's Vegetable Soup with a twist

VEGETABLES!

When it comes to "easy" things to make in the kitchen I am lost... For instance, my mom's green beans are so yummy and she says all she does is boil them with salt/pepper. I tried this but they never taste as good. She makes the world's best pound cake... mine isn't "light" enough. She can whip up fried cornbread in about 5 minutes... in those 5 minutes I am still googling how to make it! You get the point.

My mom is a very basic cook, not much seasoning, not much flair, just basic southern food. To get to the point, I love her vegetable soup. Nothing fancy, just so delicious. I made a big batch of it this week and have eaten all of it. This fall weather made me crave soup! It is also great to freeze so you can always have a healthy and delicious meal at your fingertips...

Ingredients for vegetable soup

fresh peppers picked from our garden at pearce's kitchen

finished product

Mom's Vegetable Soup

From our kitchen

• 1 pound of grass fed stew beef (optional - I didn't use last time since I am eating mostly veggies these days)
• 2 can organic tomato sauce
• 2 cans organic stewed tomatoes (drain juice into dutch oven and chop tomatoes in food processor)
• 2 -4 cans water (if you like it soupy, add the 4 cans if not add 2 cans)
• 1/2 onion - chopped
• 1 cup carrots - chopped
• 4-5 red potatoes - chopped
• 1 cup frozen lima beans
• 1 cup green beans
• 2-3 zucchini or yellow squash
• 1 package of baby bella or white mushrooms *
• 1 can corn
• 1 can canelloni beans *
• 1 green pepper *
• 3 stalks of celery *
• 2 - 3 garlic cloves - minced *
• salt
• pepper
• red pepper flakes *
• tuscan sunset (penzey's spice) *

To cook:

Preheat oven to 500 degrees

If using the beef, boil in water with salt and pepper until good and tender and falling apart. Get this cooking first while you are chopping all of the veggies. It needs to be almost done before adding to the veggies. Take the squash/zucchini, pepper, and mushrooms and toss in a little olive oil. Place into heated oven and roast for about 10 minutes. Then add all the other ingredients to a LARGE dutch oven. Now your roasted veggies should be done, so add this as well to the dutch oven. If you are using the stew beef, add now to the veggie mixture as long as the meat is tender and almost done. Bring the veggies to a boil, then turn down to low, put a lid on and let it cook away. Clearly the longer you cook it the more tender everything becomes. I cooked mine for about 45 minutes and it was so delicious. Long enough for all the flavors to mend together.

The twist on this recipe is the roasted squash, mushroom, pepper mixture. My mom doesn't roast any veggies before putting in the soup and she also doesn't use mushrooms or peppers. I like this added, it offered a little more flavor. You can also add some salsa if you want it to be more spicy - she often does this. I also added the canneloni beans and loved it! I also thought of switching the red potatoes out for sweet potatoes... going to try that next time because I am in love with sweet potatoes....

* foods that my mom does not add to her soup

ENJOY this healthy soup!