Tis the season for soup – chilly nights, crisp mornings and autumn leaves tumbling from the trees. So it’s soup time.
You can make soup from most any organic material, but I pretty much stick to the basics – chili, chicken and vegetable beef.
When cooking up a batch of vegetable beef soup, there are as many recipes as there are chefs. Everybody has his or her favorite, and it’s hard to go wrong, but I have found one basic recipe that I follow – at least as close as possible since I tend to stray on recipes, forever using what’s handy and always trying to improve on perfection.
One thing I’ve found about vegetable soup, though, is that the meat you use is super-important.
Lots of folks go to the grocery and buy stew meat, already cut into chunks, for their stews and soups because it saves time. Maybe so, but the flavor is often not there.
I have found that the most flavorful of beef cuts are from the chuck section. Beef chuck comes mainly from the shoulder but can include parts of the neck, ribs and upper limbs. Since these muscles get used a lot, cuts of chuck – though extremely flavorful – can be tough, like much of the pre-cut stew beef.
I have been using chuck steaks, which are both tender and tasty, and they are often available for a song. My first visit to the meat department at Kroger’s is always the “Sale Section” and I am often rewarded with a better cut of chuck – like the steaks – which I use in my soups. I call this Chuck & Veggie Soup. I buy as much as three pounds of chuck steak when it’s on sale, remove the fat and dice it myself, ending up paying less than for stew meat and getting a higher quality product.
The recipe I use (sort of) calls for 3 pounds of meat, diced and browned, 3 cups of tomato juice, 3 cups beef broth, 2 pounds of vegetables (any will do but I like to include baby lima beans). I also cut up a stalk of celery and a small onion for extra flavor. Brown the beef in a tablespoon or two of oil and dump everything into a crockpot (use a liner for easier cleanup). Turn the slow cooker on low that morning and the Chuck & Veggie soup is ready to eat that evening, whenever you’re ready.
The secret is to find chuck steak on sale (buy and freeze it for later use if necessary) and enjoy the most flavorful of all cuts of beef.
Chuck & Veggie Soup
3 lbs. chuck steak (cubed and browned in olive oil)
1 bag frozen assorted vegetables
1 bag frozen baby lima beans
1 stalk celery, cubed
1 onion, sliced and cubed
3 C tomato juice
3 C beef broth
Salt and pepper to taste