Vegetable Beef Soup

My mom is a really good cook and always made delicious homemade meals.  She had a few go-to meals that were standards for us growing up.  One of those was vegetable beef soup.  I wanted to make it as we were trapped inside during the icepocalypse, but I could not remember where I had put the recipe.  I used what I had, bought a few extra ingredients, and winged it a bit.  It turned out really tasty and definitely hit the spot on this cold December night!

You could make a few substitutes to this base recipe and create all sorts of vegetable soups! A few ideas would be to use ground turkey or chicken instead of beef, or you could use any vegetables you have.  Add more tomatoes to make it more of a red base or more beef stock to make it a thinner soup.  The possibilities are endless!

Vegetable Beef Soup

You will need:

2 lbs ground beef
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 poblano, chopped
1 16 oz bag frozen mixed veggies
1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 15.5 oz can fire roasted diced garlic tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
2 cups beef stock

How to make it:
In a large dutch oven, brown the ground beef.  Drain onto a plate once cooked.

In the same pan,  add olive oil and sweat onion, garlic and poblano until onion translucent.  Add all of the spices and heat for 2 minutes.  Add diced tomatoes and crush the whole tomatoes with your hand into the pan.  Cook for 5-10 minutes and then add the beef back to the pan.  Pour in the beef stock, stir to combine, and allow soup to simmer for approximately 45 minutes until desired consistency is reached.  Serve with shredded cheese and chopped green onions.