Vegetable Beef Soup

So I watched the movie Julie & Julia and I loved the idea of cooking and learning from Julia Childs. So I finally went out and bought one of her cookbooks and this last Sunday I made the Vegetable Beef Soup.

It was a interesting experience. I decided that to do this correctly I would have to use the correct ingredients and do exactly what it said. Sometimes I skip steps because I think they are useless.

So I made my own beef stock/consomme. Interesting, did you know to make your beef stock browner you bake the bones and some vegetables in the oven for 30 minutes. So of course that is what I did. This also helped with fat. Which was my other problem. I didn't want to waste all those vegetables by straining them from the stock but I did. And then I reused them in the soup. Don't know if you should but I just couldn't waste them. Then trying to skim that fat off was not necessarily fun...

I put leeks and turnips in the soup so I ended up not eating any myself. Leeks taste like onions and Turnips taste like radishes and there were a lot of them in the soup. And since I don't really like either one of those I didn't try the soup. I did taste the broth and it was good but the rating for this soup is all from Brad. Which he said was a 7 out of 10. Not bad for my first recipe of Julia's.

So I am going to try for a recipe every Sunday. We will see how that goes.

Recipe:

Beef Stock
The bones to choose: Raw beef bones, some of them meaty, are what you want here, such as the shank, the neck, the knuckle; leg bones, too, plus any raw scraps you may have collected in your freezer.

For 3 to 4 quarts of stock

3 to 4 pounds (4 Quarts or so) meaty raw beef bones sawed into pieces of 3 inches or less.
2 each: Large carrots, onions, and celery ribs, roughly chopped
6 or more quarts of cold water
A large-size herb bouquet plus 4 allspice berries and 6 peppercorns.
2 Large cloves or unpeeled garlic, smashed
1 Large unpeeled tomato, cored and roughly chopped, or 1/2 cup canned Italian plum tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp Salt, plus more as needed later

Equipment:
A roasting pan for the bones; an 8-quart kettle with cover for simmering the stock; a colander and fine-meshed sieve for straining.

Browning the bones--30 to 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 450. Arrange the bones and 1/2 cup each of the chopped vegetables in the roasting pan and brown in the upper third of the oven, turning and basting with accumulated fat several times until they are a good walnut brown, step 2. Scoop bones and vegetables into the kettle; pour out and discard accumulated fat.

Deglazing the roasting pan. Pour 2 cups of the water into the pan and bring to a boil over moderately high heat; using a wooden spoon, scrape browning juices into the liquid, then pour the liquid over the browned bones in the kettle.

Simmering the stock--4 to 5 hours. Add the herb bouquet to the kettle and the rest of the vegetables listed, with enough of the water to cover the ingredients by 2 inches. Bring to simmer on top of the stove; skim off and discard gray scum that will collect on the surface for several minutes, step 3. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Cover loosely, and maintain at the slow simmer, skimming off fat and scum occasionally, and adding a little boiling water if the liquid has evaporated below the surface of the ingredients. Simmer until you feel the bones have given their all.

Straining and degreasing. Strain the stock through the colander into a bowl, pressing juices out of the ingredients. Degrease the stock and season lightly to taste. Strain again, this time through the fine-meeshed sieve into a clean pan or container.

Beef and Vegetable Soup

2 TBSP Butter
1 Cup each: finely and neatly diced carrots, onion, leeks, and tender celery ribs
2 Quarts Beef Stock
1/2 Cup Neatly diced turnips
1/2 cup Orzo (rice-shaped pasta) or quick-cooking tapioca, or raw rice
1 1/2 Cups shredded green outer leaves of Cabbage
3/4 Cup peeled, seeded, and neatly diced Tomatoes
3/4 Cup cooked or canned red or white beans, optional
Salt and freshly ground Pepper

Melt the butter in the saucepan, stir in the diced carrots, onions, leeks, and celery, and saute 2 minutes. Pour in the stock, add the turnips and orzo, tapicoa, or rice, and simmer 10 to 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Meanwhile, drop the cabbage into a pan of boiling water and boil uncovered 2 to 3 minutes, until limp; drain, run cold water over it to set the color, and reserve. Just before serving, bring the soup to the simmer with the cabbage, diced tomatoes, and the cooked beans if you are using them. Taste carefully , and correct seasoning.