Pioneer Vegetable Soup and Other Stuff

Per a request yesterday for the soup I was making, I'm gonna share said recipe. It comes from one of Joanna Lund's cookbooks, A Potful of Recipes.

I have a number of her cookbooks and they have been very useful in the past when I found out that I was a Type 2 diabetic. She authored numerous Healthy Exchanges cookbooks which made preparing healthy and delicious meals easy. I've used this particular cookbook time and time again as all the recipes in it are for the slow cooker or crockpot! Yep, get it ready, set it, and forget it! Well, at least until it's done!

Oh, and I write in my cookbooks....rate the recipes on a 4 star system. Write how I've adapted them for myself. For instance, Joanna uses a lot of pimentos in her recipes. Sorry.....this gal (meaning me!) is not gonna use pimentos in anything except maybe a game of Scrabble if I have enough letters!

So, for Nen, who asked, here's the basic recipe for Pioneer Vegetable Soup!

Pioneer Vegetable Soup
One of the first tasks of the brave settlers who staked their claims in the harsh new land of the plains and prairies was planting a vegetable garden. A good harvest of root vegetables meant food (like this soup) to sustain them and their families through a long winter. (Joanna's description)

1 3/4 cups (1 - 15 oz can) Swanson Beef Broth
1 1/4 cups water
1 c chopped onion
1 c sliced carrots
2 c diced raw potatoes
1 c diced turnips
1 c diced celery
2 c (1 - 16 oz can) tomatoes, coarsely chopped and undrained
1/8 tsp black pepper
16 oz lean round steak, cut into 36 pieces

Spray a slow cooker container with butter-flavored cooking spray. In prepared container, combine beef broth and water. Stir in onion, carrots, celery, potatoes, turnips, undrained tomatoes, and black pepper. Add steak pieces. Mix well to combine. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours. Mix well before serving.

Serves 6 (1 1/2 cup servings)

My variations:
I don't like turnips, so I didn't use them. In place of the coarsely chopped tomatoes, I chose to use a can of zesty spaghetti sauce instead. It made the liquid part a bit more...well....zesty! ☺ I also used stew beef in place of the round steak. The stew meat was already cut up for me. Today, I have added peas, corn, green beans and northern beans (all from cans) to the mix. And a little bit of red pepper flakes to, as Emeril would say, bump it up a notch. I'll have to let you know how it turns out! (All the different colors sure are pretty to look at!) A loaf of French bread, a little butter, maybe a salad and you're set to go! Altho, to be honest, the soup is plenty all on it's own!

Oh, and before I forget! You can also freeze this, if needed!

Other Stuff:
Last night, I had a customer come thru my line who was using one of our motorized scooter carts. He looked tired and had a lot loaded in his basket. I asked if I could get him another cart and we'd be happy to help him take his purchases out to his vehicle. The very last item I had to scan was a large, heavy turkey that the tag was missing from. To say the least, the customer became irate, not with me, but with my immediate supervisor, who wisely called management after he started to yell at her and cuss her out. We got the turkey situation taken care of and one of our door greeters helped him out to his vehicle.

Part of his story is that because of health issues, he had been in the hospital for about a month and a half and had to have one of his legs amputated. When I shared this with two of my co-workers, their reaction astounded me as they didn't feel this justified his actions. I can see where they were coming from, but was left with the thought of, "Where is your compassion, your empathy, for your fellow man?"

How often do we not stop and put ourselves in someone else's shoes, in an attempt to understand why they might say what they do or act in the way that they do? Yes, such behavior is should not necessarily be tolerated, but if we, for a brief moment, could put ourselves where they are, would we be more patient, more understanding?

How grateful I am that Jesus always had compassion on "the least of these." That He chose to heal the sick, the lame, the blind. Not just to make them more tolerable to those around them, but because He wanted to bless them and draw them to Himself. That should be our goal: to be more like Jesus.

How often we fail and need His grace to carry on! We, too, are like the "least of these", in need of a Savior of love and compassion and grace and mercy.

There's my humble thought for today - I am in awe of my God Who sees my need and choses to meet them despite my being unworthy. I am blessed.....yet again!

May His blessings be upon you today - and always!
Sue