Homemade Vegetable Soup & other shenanigans

There are many times I feel like blogging by the end of the day all I want is my bed. What's been going on here? Well we are in full swing with chores with all the cows home and winter has hit. We have all had some form of sickness. Fever, sore throat, sore all over, runny noses - Thank goodness NO puking as of yet. Hoping the bugs leave us soon. My farmer has been sick for five days now and his taste buds have pretty much disappeared. Yesterday he commented that some of my homemade vegetable soup would hit the spot. (Unfortunately being Celiac he can't even has chicken noodle soup when he is sick!!) So I started making soup. He is not a big soup fan and so when he requests it - I make it! This is one of my favorite soups.

You will need:

-A large stock pot
-Water
-Soup bone, beef or pork
-Carrots, diced
-Potatoes, diced
-Celery, chopped
-Peas
-Tomato Soup
-Bay leaves
-Parsley
-Salt & pepper
-rice, macaroni or barley (optional)

Put your soup bones in the pot and fill with water. Bring to a boil and let them simmer for at least an hour. Probably more like 1.5 hours. DO NOT add water to the pot when you see it boiling down. When that's done take out the soup bones and discard. Strain the broth to get rid of miscellaneous from the bones.

You will notice that I did not add amounts of stuff on the ingredient list. I do not measure, especially with soup. The wonderful thing about soup is that if you feel you did not add enough, you just add more!!

Now add your bay leaves, parsley, salt and pepper and tomato soup. Now for the tomato soup, I added 2 quarts of my own homemade. You can use canned from the store as well. (it has gluten in it so I can't do that) You could also add canned tomatoes instead and I think it would be good too.

While the broth simmers with the greens chop up your veggies. For my large stock pot I probably did 8 cups carrots, 8-10 cups potatoes, 1-2 cups celery and 2 cups peas.

Add veggies and simmer till they are cooked through.

When the kids and I eat it we add whipping cream to the soup, my farmer does not. All depend son your taste buds and what you like. You could also add onions to this soup and it would be good. I can't cook with onions so I leave them out.

Then because it makes so much extra, I fill quart sealers and put the extra soup in the fridge. It will stay sealed in the fridge for a long time and is soooo handy for days when you don't feel like making lunch.

I am trying to get into the Christmas spirit but I'm having a hard time getting into it. Not sure why. Maybe I'll feel it when we get our big tree up. I'm making myself finish Christmas shopping because we're still not done. And the kids have been asking to make snowman cookies.....so I will have to start Christmas baking sooner than later!!

We had a great 50th Birthday Party for my Dad last weekend. Most of the Friesen family and a few friends made for a full house!! It as faspa and cake and coffee. My Auntie Trudy and family made this awesome semi cake for my Dad. It was a great evening.

Anyways, have a great night!

Ashley