Recipe: Terri Mom's Vegetable Soup

When Dan and I started dating I asked him what some of his favorite dishes from childhood were so I could try and make them.  His mom passed along a few recipes and we've made the vegetable soup a couple of times.  Now that our kitchen is bigger and the cupboards can accommodate more canned goods we have room for the ingredients to make this dish more often!  Enjoy    

The stuff
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 2 cups of beef broth (one 15 oz can or dissolve two packets of beef bouillon granules in 2 cups boiling water)
- 1/4 cup chopped onions
- 1 can green beans (drained)
- 1 can corn (drained)
- 1 can peas (drained)
- 1 can diced tomatoes (undrained)
- 1 can tomato sauce
- 6-8 potatoes (peeled and diced)
- 5-7 carrots (peeled and chopped)
- salt and pepper

Get cookin'
- In a large stock pot add the broth plus enough water to bring the level three inches deep in the pot
- Add the onions to the pot and heat until boiling
- While the water is boiling, season the ground beef with salt and pepper and roll the meat into small meatballs
- Add the meatballs to the boiling water and cook for 20 minutes - DO NOT STIR
- While the meatballs are cooking, wash, peel, and chop the carrots and potatoes  
- When the meatballs are cooked add all the remaining ingredients and stir
- Bring everything back to a boil and cook until the potatoes and carrots are tender
- Serve with biscuits or dumplings

Terri Mom makes great dumplings with this soup and gave me the recipe to try it but as you can see from the photos my pot is not big enough and the soup is practically about to spill over the edge and dumplings would have pushed it over.  I made a box of Red Lobster cheddar biscuits this weekend to serve with the soup and they were delicious too.  

This recipe makes a lot of soup. It served the two of us for dinner Saturday and Sunday with hearty portions and seconds both nights.  Great for a cold and blustery day. 

The original source for this recipe is, of course, Terri Mom!