Thursday Nov. 4, 2010... Granny's Vegtable Soup

This morning I am posting some pictures of the birds that live in the palm tree house I posted earlier this week. My  father in law "Big Wade", thinks that this may be a type of woodpecker. I have no idea. My Wade, Wade "Hammond", thinks it is not a woodpecker....but he doesn't know what it is. So Big Wade, or anyone who knows what kind of bird this is let me know. There are several different holes and birds living in the palm tree house. My picture only shows one bird. The others flew out when I came up to the tree. But one brave guy hung in there!
I walked down to the Destin Community Center to vote, after I took the picture of the bird and of course the nice lady at the door told me I could not take pictures inside. I thanked her and told her that I walked with my camera trying to get a picture of a woodpecker for my father in law. She thought that was funny:) I left my camera with her. I voted and walked back and didn't see any of the birds on my way back. I was really surprised I could catch the one I did!

What do you think Big Wade?

It's turning cold! We can build fires and wear our fuzzy slippers and sweat shirts! Momma has a good method for cooking vegtable soup that I will tell you about. All of my girls, Tricia, Lee Ann, Marcee and Amber grew up loving this soup. Now Isabelle and Brooke are the new biggest fans! Tonight and tomorrow night we will have perfect weather for a big pot of soup. Lee Ann you can do this in Auburn...hint hint:) You can reduce the amount just cook 1/2 as much ground beef and add vegtables accordingly and use frozen mixed vegtables. You can use canned vegtables, which is always the faster method, but be sure to drain them first and cook just until tender. And if you don't have chicken broth just use water.

"Granny's" Vegtable Soup

3 tablespoons of oilve oil
1 small onion chopped and sauteed in oil
Add 1 1/2 pounds of ground chuck  beef
Add 2 cups of chicken broth
1 large #2 can of tomatoes peeled whole or chopped
Assorted vegtables if you don't have fresh vegtables in the middle of winter buy a bag of frozen mixed vegtables and use those.
Some of our favorites are:
carrots chopped in rounds about 1/4 to 1/2" thick,
corn niblets fresh or frozen,
green beans, fresh or frozen
red potatoes, 5 -7 small red cut in 1/4's, or Uncle Ben's white rice about 1 cup
salt  and pepper to taste

Sautee the onions, add the beef and brown, remove from heat and drain excess fat. Chuck is more lean so you may not need to drain. You want a little of the oil and beef drippings for flavor:)

Add vegtables and tomatoes. Add the vegtables that require longer cook time first, like carrots and potatoes. Seson with salt and pepper. Fill pot with water as needed to cover. Cook on med high until they reach a boil then reduce to medium low. Cook the first vegtables about 20 min. Then add the quicker cooking vegtables like beans and corn. If needed add more water,enough to cover, and cook until they are tender on medium low heat. Let stand for about 10 min. before serving.

Serve with fried corn bread or saltine crackers or "sodie crackers" as my daddy and my granny referred to them......

Fried Corn Bread is my favorite! Or the baked Pepper Corn Bread I posted in an earlier post is delicious too. I will have to make some fried corn bread in order to tell you how to measure for it. I learned from Momma, she is one of those great cooks who doesn't measure any thing! Next week I am also going to post about making granny's cornbread dressing. I made Momma let me measure and write it down several years ago. Then the next year I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for in laws, Wade and Sally and made everything on my own for the first time! I made it through! Planning and preperation is the key to a good Thanksgiving dinner. My Wade said he doesn't understand why he has to wait for Thanksgiving to have cornbread dressing! Poor guy:)