Souptember - Nora's Hamburger Soup

 POORMAN'S SOUP?

This could also be known as Poorman's Soup? It's not too cheap
anymore considering the high cost of food, but it is still an
economical meal that can feed a lot of people. 

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at my best friend's house. Her mother, Nora, was an older kind woman with dark hair and dark eyes. Cindy was a surprise for her mother at 45 years old. One time I was giving her a perm and she got so tickled because I didn't know if I should perm her short hair that was almost like sideburns next to her ears. I had never seen someone laugh uncontrollably before. It was so infectious that soon we were all laughing so hard that we had to compose ourselves before I could get an answer. I did not perm the little sideburns. 

"Take two", I forgot to the add carrots!

I still remember Nora's voice calling out every morning in a meek voice with a real southern drawl, "Cindy, it's time to get up now, I'm leaving soon". "Cindy, I made you breakfast". This probably went on for a good 20 minutes every morning. 

Nora made breakfast every morning before leaving for her job at a school cafeteria in a neighboring town. One odd breakfast that I remember was biscuits and chocolate gravy. I have never been much of a breakfast eater, and I had certainly never heard of biscuits and chocolate gravy, so I passed. In fact, I can't think of a time when I did eat breakfast at her house. 

Crisis averted!

My favorite meal that Nora made was a soup using hamburger meat, fresh and canned vegetables with bouillon cubes, salt and pepper. That's it! I still remember the small pot that she cooked it in sitting in the refrigerator with a small plate for a lid. 

I make hamburger soup now and it is still my favorite soup to this day. I am making a much larger pot of soup. I'm using my 6-quart Dutch oven, I will be freezing 2-3 quarts of soup in quart sized freezer bags. It is so nice to pull a meal out of the freezer on busy days or on days when I just don't have the desire to cook. 

I took a few liberties and added just a few shakes of Kender's salt, pepper
 and garlic blend seasoning, a soup base instead of bouillon cubes and 

about a half a can of tomato sauce. For some reason
my diced tomatoes didn't have much juice in them.

The canned goods used in this recipe are corn, green beans and diced tomatoes. Just look at that dent in the can of corn. They make cans so thin now that most cans are dented on the store shelves now. Cans are also dented in the cases at big box stores too. I always search for undented cans. 

This can of corn came in a case of twelve, so I was unable to check for dents. I have had a big order refunded to me and sent out again because cans were so dented that the contents were not safe to eat, bags were torn open, and bottles spilled out their contents due to poor packing. The high-priced groceries that we buy shouldn't be contaminated and able to make us sick or kill us, but food borne illnesses or on the rise. Just look at these statistics:

The CDC estimates that in the United States, each year:

• 48 million people get sick from foodborne illnesses
• 128,000 people are hospitalized due to foodborne illnesses
• 3,000 people die from foodborne illnesses

Corporations just keep getting richer and richer while they continue to lower their standards making us sicker and sicker. They pay politicians big money to be able to feed us garbage. Big corporations rarely compensate people or families whose lives they have destroyed. Corporations or evil greedy people who stand on the backs of human beings for the sake of money. Not all food borne illnesses are caused by corporations, but we are constantly bombarded with food recalls. How do you think that they find out that their food is contaminated? We get sick! 

2 Timothy 3

New American Standard Bible

Difficult Times Will Come

3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, [a]haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these.  

The fresh vegetables in this recipe are carrots, potatoes, onions and celery.
I had a small amount of cabbage that I needed to use, so in it
went too. This picture is missing the carrots.

I had planned to make this soup for the Sabbath, but life got in the way as it sometimes does. By the time we got back home from a three-hour trip into another county to the closest office to fix a problem with a birth certificate/social security error. I only had a short time to prepare for the Sabbath when we got home, so I just made some taco meat, and we had tacos. I had all the accoutrements already prepared in the refrigerator.

Nora's Hamburger Soup

1 pound hamburger, browned (drain if using a high fat content meat)

2 medium potatoes, cubed

1 large carrot, sliced

2 celery stalks, sliced

1/2 small onion, chopped

1 can corn, drained

1 can green beans, drained

1 can diced tomatoes

Water to cover

6 Bouillion cubes

Salt and pepper to taste

Brown ground beef, drain if necessary. Add the onions and celery. Sauté for 10 minutes. Add the rest of the fresh vegetables to the pot. Add the bouillon cubes and the canned vegetables. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer on low until the potatoes are fork tender. (Or until the house is warmed up after a cold night, lol) Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a nice chunk of buttered bread or rolls. 

 

I jumped up early in the morning to start this soup and warm up the house. It was 55* degrees inside which is quite chilly when you get out of a warm bed. I put on a pot of tea, a pot of water for my hot water bottle and started browning the hamburger meat. I turned on the fan above the stove to circulate the heat that was heading to the ceiling. 

I had planned this out the night before because I knew it would be chilly, so I also diced up the potatoes, covered them with water and stored them in the refrigerator overnight which is probably why I forgot the carrots.

The soup is ready, and the house is nice and warm. I chose my cast iron Dutch oven not only for the size, but also for the fact that the soup would stay hot until lunchtime and continue to release warmth into our home until it cools off enough to put up. 

I cooked a total of 13 cups of soup. 

Enjoy!

Mrs. Smith

Souptember And More - Meal Preps

This week's Souptember soup is Mexican beef and rice soup. It is actually more like a thick hearty stew and is very tasty. 

Mexican Beef and Rice Soup

Tacos and Spanish Rice

I started with 10 pounds of ground chuck.

I pressed out 12 large hamburger patties for Number One Husband to grill. Until then, I froze them on trays and then I wrapped them individually and placed them back into the freezer. 

I froze three 1-pound bags of raw beef.

I cooked and bagged up the rest of the meat that was left after
cooking tacos and Mexican Beef and Rice soup. 

Tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and onions in a spiced vinegar dressing

We went to town today to pick up a few fresh groceries. It was a bit frustrating. The store was out of several items. Four items were mispriced. I had to have the supervisor over twice to fix the prices. It took forever. I found it interesting that the prices that were wrong were on the sale items. I was able to get a rain check on an out-of-stock sale item. Number One Husband actually came inside to check on me because it took so long. What a great man and husband. Thank you, Number One!

I feel like I have been sick since the beginning of February. I believe that my immune system has been compromised since I contracted shingles in February. I'm tired and I'm tired of being sick and in a weakened state.

We are still recovering from whatever we had. We are better but have not recovered completely. We are just now starting to get our appetite back. We are not very hungry at all, so cooking has been minimal for the past three weeks. 

I used to do a "Things I Like" at the end of each blog and I am not sure why I stopped. After watching a portion of the presidential debate, I would like to do a "Things I Hate" portion, but I will not. In fact, I will restart the "Things I like" portion of my blog again.

Things I Like - 

My protective loving husband

A non-election year

When it's not hunting season

Fan noise to put me to sleep

A fan blowing to cool me off

A breezy day

Cotton pajamas

Short sleeve t-shirts

Grapefruit and sandalwood body spray 

Tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and onions in a spiced vinegar dressing

Changing seasons

Falling back time change

Blogging

Shalom,

Mrs. Smith

 

Souptember Begins Today!

Soup is a primarily liquid food. Generally served hot. Made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth. Soups are similar to stews, and in some cases, there may not be a clear distinction between the two; however, soups generally have more liquid (broth) than stews. [^1] Wikipedia...

Refrigerator Soup

It is Soupember! The beginning of soup season. I love this time of the year! Soup is my favorite meal served with homemade bread or crackers. Soup is such an easy unrestricted meal to make. There are no rules to follow when I make my "Refrigerator Soup". Refrigerator Soup is soup that I make from leftovers in the refrigerator once a week through the Fall and Winter months. I gather up my fragments (leftovers) from the refrigerator, add a liquid such as water, milk or broth, and simmer with spices for a few hours on top of the stove to create a hearty soup. It is that simple! Simmering soup on the stove warms up the house and warms us up on cold days. 

Chicken Barley Soup made from chicken thigh bones
that I save up from deboning chicken thighs. 

Breads

Sesame Crackers

Bazlama

Soup is such an affordable meal, especially if made from leftovers or fragments of vegetables made into a stock. Soup, broth or pottage can be found in nearly every culture. Soup has been used throughout history to feed the masses during economic downturns like the Great Depression and during wartime. Soup kitchens and breadlines fed thousands of needy people every day during the Great Depression. A flavorful hearty soup can be made with inexpensive foods like root vegetables, cheap tough cuts of meat and simple seasonings like salt and pepper. 

Homemade Vegetable Broth made from
vegetable scraps collected and stored in the freezer 
throughout the Spring and Summer months.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken vegetable broth made from a smoked chicken carcass
and vegetables.

Potato Soup with turkey bacon.

Enjoy a pot of homemade soup today!
Shalom,

Mrs. Smith