This is a simple vegetable beef soup recipe, that has a lot of room for change, or adaptation to whatever you might have in your freezer or pantry.About the only ingredients I wouldn’t ever change or substitute is the beef itself, the mirepoix used as the base (Mirepoix “mir-uh-pwah” is just a fancy French term for onions, carrots, and celery), and the garlic. Though even in the mirepoix I don’t measure the ingredients exactly, so the 50% onion, 25% carrot, 25% celery rule of thumb doesn’t exactly apply when I make this. Just guess and try to keep it somewhat close.

I particularly like to add a can of tomato paste to give it a tomato broth

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 4-5 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 C broth (vegetable, chicken, beef, or a combination.)
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt to taste.
• Ground pepper to taste.

Other Ingredient Ideas:

• Frozen Corn
• Baby Lima Beans
• Green Beans
• Peas
• Potatoes, diced small
• Pasta (Anelli, Conchigliette, Tripolini, Alfabeto for the kids.)
• Any other vegetable that you think might work
• 1 6-oz can tomato paste

First construct your mirepoix. Dice the onion, carrots, and celery into small pieces. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium-low to medium heat in a soup pot and add the mirepoix. Season with kosher salt and pepper. Add minced garlic partway through the sweat. Sweat vegetables for several minutes until onions are translucent. If the onion starts to pick up color, your heat is too high, remove from heat, turn down the temperature and allow both the pot and stove to cool for a minute before returning the pot to the stove.

While the mirepoix and garlic are sweating, brown the ground beef in a skillet and drain fat if necessary.

After the sweat is done, add handfuls of whichever other vegetables or pasta you want, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables reach your desired doneness level. (I almost always use potatoes in my soup, and it seems that if they’re done, everything else is.)

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