Good Morning. Its a chilly morning here on Long Island New York. Thursday for dinner, I made one of my favorite soups, Beef Vegetable Soup. Just like always, it seems this recipe takes me back to my childhood. I remember how large my mother would cut up the carrots and celery. The reason of course was my brother and I, but mostly me. I remember not always liking the carrots in the soup so I would eat around them. That’s when she just stopped putting them in my bowl. I guess making them a nice large size helped her to avoid them. That’s a mom for ya! Always trying to make their children happy!! Thankfully tastes change and today I love carrots in soup and use them ALL the time. You can’t have a mirepoix without carrots and mom knew that. Today the only thing I have changed over the years is now I add baby bok choy to the soup in the last ten minutes of cooking. I am excited to share this recipe with you all and hope you enjoy it.

Beef Vegetable Soup  

Serves 6 – 8

SPECIAL IMPLEMENTS

Large Pot

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs. Beef Stew Meat (cut into large bite size pieces)

2 cups Celery (large cuts)

2 cup2 Onion (cut into 1 inch pieces)

2 cups Carrots (cut into 1 inch pieces)

4 medium Potatoes (peeled and cut into pieces)

8 cups of water

6-8 bouillon cubes (or 8 tsp of better then Bouillon)

¼ tsp pepper

 2 – 4 tablespoons of Olive oil

2 heads baby bok choy (optional)

1 package wide noodles (Optional)

DIRECTIONS

In a large pot sauté beef in small batches in olive oil until is browned and there no juices in the bottom of the pot. Drain off excess fat and then add onion and celery. Sauté until onion are translucent.  Add back in all the beef. Add water, carrots and potatoes.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Add baby bok choy if you like and simmer an additional 10 minutes. Serve Hot!

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Serving suggestion:

Wide noodles; prepare wide noodles according to package directions and serve them in a separate bowl. Add a little olive oil or butter to keep the noodle from sticking together. This was your family members can then add as many or as few of the noodles as they like. Plus, when you refrigerate the leftover soup overnight. The noodles don’t get all soggy and absorb all that luscious beef broth.  

NOTES: Serve with crackers and butter.

The Drunken Chef (Russ)