Hearty Vegetable Soup Recipe (Made with Love)
This vegetable soup recipe is from my dear mother…I grew up eating this delicious soup since childhood. My sweet mother taught me so many things in my life and cooking is one I will be thankful for my entire life. I cannot thank her enough for such a gift as this!
Every time I make this soup, it takes me back to these early days of my childhood and remembering our garden at home with all the vegetables that grew in it. Our garden seemed like a mile long and wide when I was a little girl. I would walk out barefoot and help to pick peas, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and so many more. The peas always tasted so yummy right from the pods!
I have hilarious memories of my sister, Sheila and I picking potato bugs off the potatoes and putting the bugs into a jar of kerosene! I remember them squishing into my fingers as I’d pick them off the plants. Yuck! We would get so tired of these little bugs that we would kick the potato bushes and somehow the bugs magically disappeared into the earth. Yay…we were so happy we would go back inside and say, we’re all done! We were a little naughty! Guess what, the next day, we had to go out and pick the bugs off again…yes, they were back! Too funny! We still laugh about this today!
I remember my father bringing in a wagon load of sweet corn several times every summer and all of us children had to husk and clean the cobs and then help my mother cook and cut it off the cob to freeze it for winter.
Needless to say, we children (I’m the youngest of 7), didn’t’ have many summer days to sleep in, no, we had to get up and help in the garden and pull weeds and clean vegetables! My father would say to us, I want to see hineys and elbows working out there…LOL!! Can you imagine this sight??
I wasn’t always very joyful about helping in the garden growing up, but looking back on those days has taught me to be thankful for how I grew up and the hard work that it took to keep a garden and family. I’m so thankful for all the vegetables I ate growing up and all the beautiful food we made at home with our bountiful garden goodies. This soup is a small reflection of all the vegetables in our garden that we used. I hope you enjoy this recipe and make some enjoyable memories with your loved ones while you’re eating it :)
Recipe- try to make sure your vegetables and meat (if using) are organic or pesticide free
(this makes at least a gallon or more of soup-feel free to half the recipe, freeze portions of it, or better yet, give some to a friend:)
You will need:
6 potatoes (medium to large size, cleaned, unpeeled and cut into large chunks)-red or brown skin is fine
2-3 sweet potatoes (cut into large chunks-unpeeled)
4-5 carrots (cut into chunks)
1 bag of frozen sweet corn (I love to use corn from the garden if you have it available)
1 head of cabbage (cut into slices and chunks-cabbage makes this soup taste so good)!
1 head of broccoli florets (cut into large chunks)
1 small bag of frozen or fresh green beans-if using fresh, use about 1 ½ cups
1 small bag of frozen or fresh peas-if using fresh peas, use about 1 cup
Optional- 1 bag of frozen okra (I love this in my soup because it has such an anti-inflammatory effect to the GI tract)
1 bunch parsley (chopped well)
1 onion (minced or cut finely)
5 garlic cloves (minced)
1 lb hamburger or ground turkey (may omit if you’re a vegetarian)
1 large can (24-29 oz) of crushed tomatoes
1-2 cans of white cannellini beans (optional)
2 tsp-1 TBSP turmeric powder
1 TBSP sage leaf
2 tsp marjoram
1-2 tsp of Bragg’s Organic Sprinkle Seasoning (optional-but makes it yummy)
2 TBSP ghee or butter
1-2 tsp of coconut sugar, sucanat, or rapadura (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
2-3 quarts of filtered water, or more depending on how thick you would like your soup to be
Final and most important- a big dose of Love!
Directions
Brown meat in frying pan until lightly browned, drain excess fat.
Into a large stainless-steel pot (mine is about a 2-gallon pot size), melt ghee or butter and add chopped onion, garlic, and parsley and lightly sauté.
Then add all the other ingredients, one by one, into the pot and let soup come to a very low gentle boil, may place lid on the pot (but do not seal).
Let lightly boil or simmer until all the vegetables are tender. Make sure you are stirring this soup every 5 minutes or so. The cooking time takes about 20-30 minutes (check often and if vegetables are tender sooner, may turn heat off).
When my vegetables are slightly tender (not completely finished), I like to turn off the heat to the stove and place the lid fully onto the pot and leave it to cool on the burner. This helps to finish the soup without overcooking it.
When soup is complete, place in large gallon glass jar(s) and refrigerate-will keep in refrigerator for about 4-5 days.
This soup is a meal in itself and is great all by itself or lovely with a green salad, some crusty gluten free bread is also a yummy treat with this soup too!
Enjoy!
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