Moma's Vegetable Soup is pure comfort food. Filled to the brim with vegetables, chunks of beef, and a ton of flavor.
This recipe is one of those recipes that you long to make as soon as the weather turns a little cooler. This will be one of those recipes that is going to be a little hard to get the measurements down since I don't measure anything I put in this. When I make this I usually make a HUGE pot of it and we eat it for days. I have found one of the easiest ways to stretch your food is to make soup. During the winter months I try to make a pot of soup on the weekend and we have it to eat at least a few days into the week. This saves me time while stretching our money. My Mom and Dad have had to change up how they make this soup for many years due to the fact that my Dad all of a sudden became allergic to beef. My mom being the creative woman that she is came up with a solution so we could still have her vegetable soup. She just added ham instead and altered a few ingredients due to the salt content in the ham. This is just as good as with the beef. Recently, my Dad has started buying grass fed beef and is now able to eat beef without any problems. He still eats it in moderation but now he can enjoy all those foods he loved. I know this will be on their menu very soon.
I did not take any during photos of the process just the end result. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to put this into writing of how to make it and share with you. I will try my best and by all means you can scale this back to meet the needs of your family. It is a little bit of prep work but so worth it in the end. When I make this I feel like I am getting a big ole hug from my Mom. Ultimate comfort food! I use a stockpot to make this but you can scale it back and make it in whatever the biggest pot you have on hand. I have two size stockpots right now, one is smaller but I like to go for the big boy on this one. I actually bought it at Goodwill for around $5, it doesn't have a lid but guess what I just make my own, my pizza pan. I am the queen of making due and besides I hated seeing such a nice pot sit on the shelf because it didn't have a lid. It just wanted to make some soup!
I start off by cooking stew beef with onions and salt and pepper until done. If the cubes are a little big I like to cut them up to stretch the meat since I make enough to feed an army. Once that is done I add in about three to four stalks of celery chopped up and add a little water to cover the meat. I let this simmer while I peel and cut the potatoes. This allows all the flavors to meld together. Since I make this in such a huge pot I cut about 5 pounds of potatoes. Next, I add the potatoes to the meat and celery mixture and add water to cover. At this point I start to add the remaining ingredients so everything cooks at the same time. Next add 1 large bottle of V8 vegetable juice and a large bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Now just let this simmer on the stove for a good hour. Test to see if this needs anymore salt and pepper at the end. I know you will probably think I am crazy but somewhere along the line my Mom started serving sausage biscuits with this soup and now we can't have it without them. When my husband had this the first time he looked at us like we were crazy because we were having sausage biscuits with soup. I can tell you he is the first one now to ask where are the sausage biscuits and refuses to eat it without it. Trust me, we never eat this soup without these biscuits. I hope you get to try this soup and I hope these directions are understandable.
Moma's Vegetable Soup
1-2 pounds stew beef, cut into smaller pieces
half an onion, chopped
3-4 stalks of celery, chopped
1 large bottle of V8 juice
1-2 large bags of frozen mixed vegetables
5 pound bag of potatoes
salt and pepper to taste
Cook stew beef with onion, once beef is done add celery and water to cover. Simmer while peeling potatoes. Add potatoes and water to cover. Next add a bottle of V8 juice and frozen vegetables. Simmer about an hour or longer until done. Season with salt and pepper as needed. Enjoy!
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