One of my all time favorite things to cook is my grandpa’s Vegetable Beef Soup, I remember waking up on the weekends and the smell would fill the house, nothing else could be thought of those days aside from- “When can we eat the soup!” I have yet to be able to make it ‘just’ like he did, but I keep trying and everytime it gets better and better. Well, aside from the time I accidentally dumped in about 4x too much pepper- that was BAD! LOL But we ate it anyway- spice and all! My mom can actually cook it pretty good too!

It is actually very easy to make, I don’t actually make it with measurements, just lots of everything and a big pot so be prepared to have leftovers!

Ingredients:
2+ pounds stew meat
flour
1 yellow onion
celery
baby carrots (about 2 bags)
red or Idaho potatoes, depends if you feel like peeling or not
1 can Rotel Diced Tomatoes (mild or medium)
1 can tomato Sauce
1 envelope Lipton Dry onion Soup Mix
1 large bag of frozen mixed veggies (the soup mix variety if you can find it- mainly corn, green beans, celery, carrots)
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Coat stew meat in flour, seasoned with some salt and pepper and brown the meat in a hot pan with oil, depending on your stew pot you can do this in the pan before you add the other ingredients (wouldn’t work with a crock pot) Only brown the outside, we don’t want to cook it, just give it a little heat.
2. Put the browned meat in the bottom of the pot, adding in some of the leftover oil mix with the seasoned flour from when you browned the meat.
3. Add in the potatoes (peeled if not red potatoes and cut into bite sized chunks), carrots, celery, onion and the envelope of onion soup mix.
4. Now pour in the can of rotel, the tomato sauce, and cover with enough water to cover everything, stirring is not needed just yet.
5. Let cook for about 4 hours on low/medium heat and then add in the bag of frozen vegetables, adding water as needed and stirring about once an hour.
6. Finally let cook for another 2-3 hours and check the meat and potatoes- if they are cooked then you are good to go! It is still very good if you continue to cook some, just keep adding water to keep it wet.

We usually eat some and freeze the rest in big portions, when you reheat it is is great to add more water to make it last even longer, if you reheat it in a crock pot and add water and let it simmer for a while it is delicious! Like I said I am still perfecting it so if I left anything out or if you know of another trick feel free to let me know!!!

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