Recipe For a Snowy Day

Winter will officially begin this week, and today was the first major snow that we’ve had here in New England. As usual, my husband will be getting home pretty late . He does an hour-long commute both to and from work each day, so rather than sit in snowy traffic for 4 hours on a snowy Friday night, he’s going to stay in the office for a couple of extra hours until the traffic dies down.

This past week, we had a power outage that left us in the dark for 4 days. Needless to say, all the crap in my fridge and freezer were lost — and that includes my precious condiment collection! We had our weekly groceries delivered last night, though: mostly a lot of fresh meat and veggies. Eating out of cans for 4 days in a row can be pretty draining to the soul!

Since the weather outside is pretty brutal today, I’ve decided that I really want to make something warm and comforting for dinner tonight. And nothing accomplishes that feeling better than a big bowl of homemade soup — except, of course, if it’s the sort of soup that can be made by throwing a pile of stuff into the crockpot and forgetting about it.

CROCKPOT VEGGIE-BEEF SOUP

1 lb. London broil

1 15-ounce can of your favorite type of beans, drained (and hopefully rinsed)

2 cups vegetable juice cocktail (V8)

1/2 cup pineapple juice*

1/3 cup low-sodium soy sauce

2-4 cups of water (some of the veggies will provide moisture too)

1/2-1 cup chopped carrot

1/2-1 cup chopped celery

1 large chopped onion

good-sized pinch of dried rosemary (maybe 1/2 tsp or so; crumble it up between your fingers as you add it, unless you like big blobs of it everywhere.)

small pinch of dried basil (1/4 tsp or so)

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper to taste




DIRECTIONS:

Chop up all the veggies and place them in the crockpot; you can choose to cut the meat now, or pull it apart once it’s cooked. Add the other ingredients into the crock pot and cook on High for 4 hours, or Low for 8 hours. (Add the beans at the beginning if you want them soft and falling apart, or at the end if you like yours to be more firm.) I’d recommend using salt once this soup has been served; soy sauce and V8 have quite a bit of sodium, and you may find you don’t really need it.

To make this a vegetarian meal, simply omit the London broil and add another 1-2 cans of beans (mix and match whatever you like).

I’ve added all kinds of other vegetables to this soup, but the ingredients above are the basic building blocks. Peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, and fennel are all delicious in this recipe.