Vegetable Beef Soup

Vegetable Beef Soup

I love this soup. It reminds me of the vegetable beef soup at Mimi's Cafe, but I don't think they serve it there any more. At any rate, it's a nice, relatively light vegetable beef soup that's salty, beefy, and vegetable-y. I found the recipe at Allrecipes.com, but the original recipe called for ground sirloin. I thought top sirloin (not ground) sounded better, and since Mimi's had zucchini in theirs, I added that too. The soup tastes great the first time you serve it, but I think it tastes even better the next day after it's sat in its juices and flavors over night.
I haven't made this soup in a long time, maybe because I avoided such recipes when my kids were little. In retrospect, I see the error in my thinking, but they will eat this tonight. And they will love it. I am surprised at how MUCH soup this makes and I'm now thinking I need to package some up for my mother-in-law who will be taking my kids to school tomorrow while I go to jury duty. Clearly it's time to end this post now that I'm talking about jury duty.
Bottom line: this is a GREAT vegetable beef soup. Enjoy.
Note: I recently added the chili garlic sauce and it really kicks this soup up. It does make it a little spicy, so if you don't like spicy, don't bother with the chili garlic sauce.

Vegetable Beef Soup
   --adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 1/2 pounds top sirloin
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 5 cups water
• 2 teaspoons salt (original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon)
• 2 beef bouillon cubes
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (optional)
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 russet potato,peeled and diced
• 1 zucchini, quartered lengthwise, cut into 1/2 inch chunks

Instructions:
Cut top sirloin into bite-size chunks or slices. Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown sirloin and onions.
Add basil, thyme, and bay leaf. Cook and stir another minute or two.
Add tomatoes, water, salt, bouillon cubes, pepper, and chili garlic sauce (if adding it). Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low/medium-low, and simmer for about 1 hour.
After an hour of simmering, add vegetables. Stir and simmer for another 45 minutes.
Serve hot.

Makes about 8 servings.