Vegetable Beef Soup

I do love soup. This is one of my favorites. The long and slow cooking makes for an incredibly rich and flavorful meal. This is a great way to get lots of veggies in and smells wonderful while it’s cooking. You can change up the vegetables to suit yourself and I’m sure you could even use some frozen veggies, like green beans. This is probably a great recipe for a crock pot, but I haven’t tried that.

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 pounds chuck roast
2 large carrots, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
2 ribs of celery, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
1 cup onion, roughly chopped
½ cup green pepper, roughly chopped
2 large, fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped (and their juice) (about 3 cups)
4 cups vegetable broth/beef broth OR water
1 cup vegetable juice (like V8®)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
½ teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon grill seasoning (like Montreal steak seasoning)
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon dried marjoram
1 cup zucchini, roughly chopped
1 cup yellow squash, roughly chopped
1 large potato, cut into half inch cubes (tip: don’t cut the potato until it is almost ready for the soup to lessen the browning)
1 cup frozen peas, thawed

Directions:

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add the chuck roast and sear on all sides. Remove the roast to a plate and add the carrots, celery, onion and green pepper to the Dutch oven. Cook, stirring often until the vegetables are soft and fragrant but not brown (about 5 minutes). Add the roast back into the Dutch oven, add the tomatoes and their juice, broth or water, Worcestershire, salt, pepper, grill seasoning, thyme and marjoram. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cover the pot. Simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Taste the soup and adjust seasonings to your liking. Remove the beef to a plate and pull it into pieces using two forks or a knife and fork. Discard any really obvious fat from the meat. Put the beef back in the Dutch oven and add the zucchini, yellow squash and potato. Cover again and cook for another 30 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender. Remove from the heat and stir in the peas-they don’t really need to cook.  Serve in big bowls with hunks of French or Italian bread.