Vegetable Soup

Are there many things better than homemade vegetable soup on a cold day? Not no but Hell No! Ah but you say, you live in Florida, it never gets cold there. I beg to differ. Brrrrrr.

We're going to make a big batch today so we can freeze some for our next cold snap. We start with about 56 ounces of crushed tomatoes and about 40 ounces of tomato sauce in a 10 quart stock pot. Begin heating over  medium low heat.

Now I like to fry up a pan full of bacon.

Fry until crispy and then crumble into the pot.

In the bacon drippings sweat two large, coarsely chopped onions.

Into the pot they go. Now I like beef in my soup so I bought a roast that was on sale and chopped it into one inch cubes. I always get whatever is on sale as long as it is fairly lean. Today I used a shoulder roast that I trimmed the fat off of. If you like beef use a lot. If you don't like it, don't use it.

 I brown it in the frying pan.

And into the pot it goes. Now I like to add four or five carrots and the same amount of celery.

Now I add one pound packages of these frozen vegetables, thawed.

Corn

Baby limas.

Field peas with snaps.

And gumbo vegetables. Can you use canned vegetables? 'Course the hell you can! You can use any combination of vegetables that you like. And you could start saving your left over vegetables into a freezer bag and just keep adding to it through out the year. They make great soup also. Now add water to the top, cover vented, and bring slowly to a low boil.

Once you get it boiling add potatoes if you like.

Adjust the seasonings. Lots of pepper and salt to taste. You may need to add sugar if the tomatoes were not sweet enough. Now let it simmer away filling your house with the smell of fresh soup.

Enjoy.

It's about time I got that drink!