Beef & Vegetable Soup With Cornbread

 

Tonight was a night for soup.  I've been feeling like I'm worn a little thin "like too little butter scraped over too much bread" if you will indulge a quote from a favorite movie (LOTR).  We've also been trying to be more frugal with our food dollars and I've been trying to use what we have in our pantry and food storage.

I love soup.  There is no doubt about this.  My husband does not think soup constitutes a meal and I disagree.  He thinks soup can be part of a meal but not the main show...beef in any of its forms, but preferably steak, is king.  If it were up to him we'd be eating steak several times a week, and as a result of too much red meat, limping around with gout in our toes like old English kings...but, as I'm sure all of you have seen the prices of our slaughtered and prepared bovine friends, these days it ain't comin' cheap, so be it...no red-meat-steak-induced-gout-a-la-English-kings for us anytime soon.  He and I will never see eye to eye on this and that's o.k. because we're still going to have soup for dinner periodically over the next 8000 years that we will be married...and he's gonna like it dammit...or at least eat it, preferably with a "Thank you, ma'am." and a smile...or at least a semi-contented grimace.

Generally, we eat what's on sale or what comes for free from the end-of-summer gardens that our friends and neighbors have been kind enough to ding-dong-doorbell ditch on the handle of our front door.  No such luck tonight though and so it was a rummage through the fridge and pantry to see what we had to choose from.  Tonight I had some left over ground beef that needed to get used and in the back of the lazy-Susan cupboard I knew I could drag out a bag of Marie Callendar's Cornbread mix...delicious stuff.  So I was set: Beef & Vegetable Soup and Cornbread for dinner.

Now, let's get a couple of things out of the way: yes, I know Marie's cornbread is more like cake, and yes, I do know how to make actual cornbread from cornmeal in the oven with a cast iron pan and the sizzling of the batter as it's dumped into it and all of that coarse corn goodness.  I didn't do that here tonight.  I didn't have the time or the energy for this...I had the Season 3 finale of the Sons of Anarchy to watch and people in this house were already hungry.

BTW don't judge me on the SOA.  I can neither confirm nor deny that I am hooked like a junkie on this program, that I am loading on the costume jewelry before I head out to work every day as I channel my inner Gemma Teller, biker matriarch extraordinaire, or that I've been walking around the house telling people I'm going to "green light" them if they don't do what I want and...yes...I have been calling my husband my "old man"and "baby" more frequently than usual these past few days.  I also cannot in good conscience, as an upstanding citizen and somewhat refined woman of reasonable sensibilities with a bit of baudy humor tossed in for a little sass, recommend this show to anyone so don't ask.  You're on your own for that.  It's an adult show fraught with violence and criminal activity, it is extremely well written and engaging...and you're going to need to make your own decision about that.

But, back to food.

I was on a quest for a soup or something easy to do with this hamburger that's been hanging around my neck these past few days waiting for its turn to be turned into something amazing.

Well hamburger...you have fulfilled the measure of your creation by providing this household with some damn fine soup.  This was fast, delicious, most of the stuff I had on hand, and what I didn't I didn't worry too much about.  It's the kind of soup that you can easily adjust for the palate of your family or the availability of items in your cupboard.  This is a great stand by and a fantastic way to kick off all of the autumnal soups I plan to have some fun with this year.  Here you go:

Beef & Vegetable Soup

Saute in Olive Oil

• 1-1.5 pound ground beef
• ½ lg white onion chopped
• 1-2 med green bell peppers chopped (I had frozen and so I used these)
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic

Add in:

• 2 tablespoon flour, mixing in well

Add in, and then cook for 20-25 minutes

• 1 can Rotel tomatoes and green chilies
• 1 4 oz. can of diced green chilies
• 1 7 oz. can of whole green chilies, coarsely chopped
• 1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
• 2 C. Progresso beef broth
• 2 cups of water
• 1lg russet potato, diced
• 1 can sliced green beans
• 1 teaspoon chili powder or chili powder to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 5+ slices of pickled, tamed jalapenos
• salt and pepper to taste

During the last 10 minutes, add in:

·         1 cup elbow macaroni and let cook for remaining 10 minutes.

*You can, of course adjust the seasoning to whatever suits your taste.

• Serve piping hot with cornbread or crackers.

Additions:

• 1 small bag of mixed vegetables.  I didn’t add because I didn’t have it.
• ¼ tsp. Celery Seed.  I only had Celery Salt and I didn’t add that in because I had already salted the soup.