“I KNOW HOW TO BOIL WATER; I JUST DON'T KNOW WHEN IT'S DONE": Beef Soup

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Beef Soup

2-3 lb lean boneless chuck roast
4 quarts water

Bring chuck roast and water to a boil. Skim off any foam and discard.

Reduce heat to low add:

4 beef bouillon

2 medium onions, skinned
1 whole tomato
5-6 stalks celery including leaves
1/4 cup dried parsley or 1 cup fresh
and cover pot with a lid.

Simmer on low for 2 hours.

Remove meat to a plate and strain out the onions, whole tomato and celery, and discard.

Add:

1 lb bag carrots, cut into fourths
1 Tbsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
and return meat to pot
Add 1 quart more boiling water and cook another hour or until meat is tender. Remove meat to a serving platter. Cut meat into serving bite size pieces and return it to the soup.

Add 4 medium potatoes, cut into quarters and cook 1/2 hour more.

Make homemade gumboli (or use store bought egg farvel) and add to soup.

This soup brings back memories of my father. I think this may have been one of his favorite soups that my mother would make.

Not only did he enjoy the soup, he would have my mom not add the meat back to the soup, but to leave it separate. (He liked his soup with just the broth, carrots and potatoes. The roast my mom would then use the bite size pieces of meat to make him a hearty sandwich, served on white or rye bread, and spread with mustard (brown not yellow for my dad, yellow for me) to go along with the bowl of soup.

Oh what a wonderful Sunday feast my mom would make of this meal.

Homemade soup is really very simple, it’s just the length of time cooks don’t like to put into their cooking. Everything in this fast world has to be done in under 30 minutes. The flavors of yesterday, start to feed you with just the aroma and your sense of smell over the time frame it takes to simmer. It really isn’t a lot of work to cook it’s the time I think we don’t like to put into it.

Enjoy! Élvez! Piacere! Gustirati! Radosť!

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Natural Resource

Beginnings

It was tradition in my family that soup was served almost every Sunday. There were only a handful of Sundays where soup wasn't part of the menu. On those days, we probably took a trip to Rivesville, West Virginia to visit with my Grandma, who usually had her own pot of soup on, and homemade bread to sink our teeth into. Sundays started with Mass, and after returning home, we would have breakfast. One of my favorite morning dishes was palachintas (yum). Mom would already have soup on the stovetop, and between noon and 2 o'clock it was time for the "soup feast." You could tell time at our house by the Sunday meal plan. A lot of them were based on the time of the football game, or other sporting event. Soup was always served as the noon time meal, followed by a hearty meatloaf, roast beef, stuffed cabbage, chicken paprikas, or the like, at suppertime (usually around 4 o’clock). It seemed like all we did on Sunday was eat and relax. You would wonder how you could be hungry for supper at 4 or 5 o’clock. Amazingly, you were. There were times I would remember that if there wasn’t enough roast beef to make you content, Mom would give you a slice of bread on your plate and cover it with gravy (Gravy Bread). What an added feast we thought we were getting. Little did we know, there probably wasn't enough meat for seconds, and who cared, because there was always plenty of gravy for that "oh so special" Gravy Bread. I really don’t remember a lot of desserts. I know we probably had them from time to time, but even if there were, I don’t know how one would find, or want to find, the room to fit it in. Well, all this talk is making me hungry. Go turn on the water and let’s get started!

Dedication

I dedicate this website to the 4 best cooks I know: My mother, who nourished me from the day of my first breath, both physically and spiritually; my mother-in-law, introducing me to her family favorites and customs; my husband’s grandmother, who had a unique, physical and verbal way of teaching me all her different techniques, to pass on traditional dishes; and last, and foremost, my heavenly mother, Mary, who is always by my side guiding me with spiritual intervention every step, and ingredient, of the way. It is with a deep love of my heritage that I also dedicate this collection of recipes to all the cooks who are just starting out and continuing the tradition of using recipes that are "family recipes." I hope that this website will serve to preserve some of my "family recipes" and to kindle an interest in traditional cooking among the younger families in a not always traditional way.

Enjoy!
With much love, Beve