I went to walmart and got some stuff to make soup tonight. It turned out pretty good so I'm going to write it down before I forget. I bought some 'super trim stew meat.' The names are always funny to me. "Super trim" ... "Ultra lean"...sounds like the cows are the ones on an exercise regime. Anyway. soup. I bought 3 kinds of squash, head of cabbage, frozen green beans, frozen peas and the meat. I already had carrots, onions, garlic, and celery at home.
I normally would roll the meat in flour and pour oil in the pot and brown it. Instead, I put some garlic and a couple tablespoons of browning sauce and turned it on high heat and browned the meat in that. Then I added the chopped onion, celery, about two or three cups of butternut squash (peeled and diced), and sautéed that for a good 15 minutes. Then I added the chopped carrots, and chopped cabbage, 1 peeled and diced yellow squash, and 1 peeled and diced zucchini, water and seasoning (tony chachere's and a tbl. of beef bouillon) Oh and 2 bay leaves. And some more chopped garlic. And salt. OHH and 2 peeled sweet potatoes -->
<-- cut into fours. I brought it to a boil and then turned it low and cooked it for 2 hours. Then I added a cup of frozen peas and a cup of frozen green beans and turned the heat back up and cooked it for 15 min.
The only difference I would make next time is cook the squash and sweet potatoes separately and puree them and then add them in. It would have made it thicker and would have tasted less watery.
I ate it with half a cucumber sandwich and some multi-grain crackers.
