Butterfly Cauldron

Monday, January 15, 2007

Best. Soup. Ever.

Welcome to Zan's Kitchen. All recipes, all the town. Apparently, I'm taking the cauldron portion of my name a bit too literally lately. Because I cooked again and since I loves you all, I'm sharing the recipe. It's a pretty basic veggie soup, but I cannot get enough of it. Yum! I've got some put up in the freezer for later and already ladeled out a bowl for tomorrow at work. And yet, I've still got a HUGE pot left. Anyone wanna come over for lunch?

2 lean steaks, cut o'your choice. Mine came from my Mom's freezer :)
1 can beef broth
1 can tomato sauce
Some tomato bullion
Pasta o'your choice
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can diced potatos
1 can sliced carrots
Onion
Sage, Thyme, Crushed red pepper, Basil, Sea Salt, Black Pepper, Tony's seasoning, Oregano, whatever other seasonings you have in your cabinet.

Cut steak into bitty cubes. Toss in the stock pot with beef broth, tomato sauce, tomato bullion, plus buncha water. (Can you tell my Mom never put much stock into measuring? This is how I learned to cook. Just eyeball it, stop when it looks right.) Add chopped onions and seasoning, heat over low to medium heat until slowly boiling. Heating it slowly gives the meat time to soak up the seasonings and get really tender. Stir occassionally -- but seriously, I was online and downloading music the whole time I was cooking, so it doesn't need a lot of attention. So long as the heat isn't really high.

When you get a nice slow boil, toss in some pasta. I used elbow mac, but whatever you got. I don't think spigetti would work, but hey, who knows? Have fun with it. Let this all keep slow boiling until the pasta is done. Add in veggies. I drained all the water off mine, but you can leave it on if ya like. Or you can use fresh veggies. Or frozen. Whatever.

Let everything simmer for awhile, giving the veggies time to get tender and absorb some seasoning. When they're tender to your liking, dish up and eat. Makes more than I'll be able to eat in a week! Yum.

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I think I'm cooking like this as a sort of comfort measure. I'm not feeling terribly well. My head is seriously dizzy and I'm stuffed up like crazy. And so, since I am resisiting the urge (and do not have the money) to go buy myself a gallon of ice cream, I'm cooking the things I remember my Mom making. Huge pots of soup and chickeny goodness, things that have good memories attached to them. I don't know what people do who don't have parents who cooked. I can't remember my childhood without that memory. Something was always cooking. Might not have been much, but we had something. I made myself pancakes last night. My mom used to make pancakes for dinner when my dad was offshore at work. Dad always wanted a meal-meal for dinner, but when he wasn't home we'd have whatever we wanted. Pancakes or waffles or oh! She used to make the most awesome yeast bread cinnamon rolls. They were HUGE and we'd have them, just them, for dinner. Cinnamon rolls and cold, cold milk. *sigh* I may have to call her and get the recipe. Hrm....

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posted by Zan at 1:07 PM

2 Comments:

This is your revenge for all the times I plied you with Latinas calientes!

Well played.


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What can I make/take to lunch at work? Soup is so comforting, it would make me want to pass out. I've tried sandwiches, but quickly tire of them, and they're annoying to make. Microwaveable meals have chicken, and I already have that for dinner all the time.

I've bought meatless hot dogs, but if I hate them, I may try regular hot dogs.

8:04 PM  

Meatless hot dogs? Sacrilige!!

And yeah, you know. You come here, I'll cook for ya. See? I'm nice like that ;)

9:20 PM  

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