Cold Weather Comfort Food


After making beef consomme earlier in the week, I just knew I had to make a beef vegetable soup later in the week. And, Friday's that day.

I pulled together the ingredients for the soup and bagged them up together earlier in the week.

Here are my veggies for the soup: 3 red potaoes, 3 crimini mushrooms, 4 carrots (another one found its way into the pot later), 2 celery sticks, 1 large clove of garlic, grated, 1/4 pound fresh green beans, and 1/4 yellow onion, diced.

The potatoes have been diced and are sitting in water to prevent browning. The green beans and mushrooms will be added a bit later, while the carrots, celery and onion will go in after the meat is browned and removed from the pot.

I cut the lean stew meat into bite size pieces.

All the ingredients have been added to the pot. About 6 cups of beef consomme, 1/2 cup tomato paste, worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, red wine and dried Herbes de Provence round out the dish.

After 2 hours of simmering, soup is on.

And here is the Semi-Homemade part of the meal. I made bread from a box mix in my bread machine.

And the best part of this is that Monday's dinner of beef vegetable stew (with the addition of a roux) will cook in the slow cooker so my family can eat while I attend yet another meeting.