#15 Countryside beef and garden vegetable soup

This week has been a real shock to my system, to say the least.  But, I did slip down to the farmer's market on Wed. for some goodies to finish off this crazy week. 

How about you?  Do you need strength?  How about your kiddos?  Exhausting first week?  Make some soup.  It'll cure what ails ya.

Market finds:  Bartlett pears, Italian Plums, red pepper, Romas, green beans, and a little head of cabbage.  Total cost = $16.90.

 

 

The pears were eaten fresh, the plums made into lunchbox snacks (see yesterday's post ...) and the rest went into a lovely, and super-powered soup:  "Countryside Beef and Garden Vegetable Soup", from Healthy Slow Cooker Cookbook, by American Heart Association.

 

Besides the above pictured veggies, this soup contains 1 lb of beef roast, cauliflower, celery, a potato, and some other stuff.  Guess what?   I found the recipe online for you:  right here.  (The blog it's on lists the source as Women's World magazine, so it must have been printed there too.) 

 

My verdict on this soup:  Tasty.  I loved the flavor.  It needs a few tweaks though. 

 

I put it on low and after 5 hrs the beef was still rock-hard, so cranked it up to high. After 1 hr on high the beef was tender and juicy, perfect, so I took it out, cut /shredded it, and tossed the cabbage in the pot, AND put the beef back in for another hour on high.  Bad mistake.  Another hour on high was great for the veggies...not so much for the beef.  It dried it out.  Moral of the story:  when the beef is perfect, don't cook it any more.  I should have just refrigerated it right then and there, and tossed it into the soup right before serving. 

 

Also, there was nowhere near enough liquid in this soup.  Next time I will add in 2 c of homemade beef stock right from the get-go.  Oh YEAH.  That would be awesome.

 

And one last thing that will make a great difference...after you take the beef out to shred it, you might want to stick an immersion blender in the crock pot with the veggies, and give it a whirl for a second or two.  Not til it's totally smooth!  You still want chunky veggies.  So just a little blending.  That would add a bit more thickness and body to the broth.  The beef bone stock should help with thickening too. 

 

And don't be temped to add more than 1 lb. beef.  I used 2 lbs., cuz one pound of roast looked so tiny!  But it was actually just too much.  They were right.  1 lb. is perfect.

 

It's getting a little drizzly outside.  I think cold and flu season is right around the corner.  Man, this would probably be an extremely healing soup to make ahead and freeze, for those upcoming cold-induced soup-eating emergencies.

 

Nourish on!