Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup

Place the stew meat in a stainless steel Dutch oven, cover with 6 cups of water and sprinkle 2 teaspoons of salt over the meat. Cook over a medium heat. Use a large spoon to scoop and remove the “scum” that accumulates on top of the water as the meat boils. Continue cooking for at least four hours. This will make the meat tender and tasty.

As the meat cooks there will be less liquid as the water boils away. Add one cup of boiled water at a time, as needed. You may have to do this several times.

After about four hours the meat should be tender enough to cut with a spoon. Add diced onion, chopped carrots, quartered red potatoes, canned corn, and black pepper. Depending on your taste, add a small (8 ounce) or large (15 ounce) can of tomato sauce.

Cook for at least one more hour or more. The flavor of the meat cooks into the vegetables. If needed, add another cup of BOILING water. That water must have time to cook down or the soup will taste watery.

This is the basic recipe for the way I like it. For me, vegetable beef soup must have potatoes, carrots, onion and little or no black pepper. Mom always made her soup with cooked tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, and added lots of other vegetables from their garden (cabbage, green beans, turnips, peas, etc).

I suggest that you use this recipe as a guide to learn how to make it like you prefer. The most important thing is to cook the meat for at least four hours over a medium fire.