A reader had shared this soup recipe – Farmers’ Market Vegetable Soup (for canning). Of course, you could make it and freeze it or cut the recipe down if you don’t want to make a ton.
I had already made it once. The recipe says it makes 6 quarts but the first time I made it, I got 8 quarts. I’m never very good at measuring. Since I already knew that we loved it, I pretty much doubled everything so I would get at least 14 quarts to totally fill the canner.
Because my pot wasn’t large enough to double the whole recipe, I doubled the veggies and seasoning but used the amount of tomatoes and broth for one recipe, simmered everything and then used a slotted spoon to get all the veggies into the jars. Then, with just liquid in the pot, I added the rest of the tomatoes and the broth, let that simmer, tasted it for seasonings, added a bit more salt and a bit more black pepper, and then pour it into the jars over the veggies.
This recipe has no meat. At first I thought that was kinda weird because we’ve always had “vegetable/BEEF soup” and there’s no beef! But after thinking about it, this works great for several reasons. First, I have many pint jars of ground beef and many pint jars of roast beef canned. I like having small amounts because if it’s just the two of us and we want a roast beef sandwich, a pint of beef is great. If we want tacos, a pint of beef is perfect. Those jars of beef will be great to add to a quart of this soup.
The ground beef is already browned and cooked but I would drain it, brown it again in olive oil or grapeseed oil, maybe add more onions and garlic, then add the soup to the ground beef and let it simmer for a while.
I could add leftover pulled pork or leftover smoked chicken. Having no meat in the soup gives me lots of options.
Also, about every other week, I fix a roast or a round steak with gravy. Almost always, there will be dishes made with the leftover roast beef. So many yummy dishes can be made: roast beef hash, enchiladas, Beef Rigatoni, Roast Beef Sliders (they had me at horseradish mayo).
Now that I have this soup, I can cut up some of the leftover beef into chunks, add the beef and the gravy to the soup, add more water, maybe more tomatoes if necessary to create more juice, add barley if desired (I LOVE barley!)
Now that I’ve thought this through, I may never again add beef to the soup I’m canning.
By the way, the white jars behind the soup (if you noticed) . . I canned five quarts of milk today too.
Janet B says
My grandmother used to can soup with just vegetables like this. She called it Soup Mix. I canned my soup this way and my husband said he had never heard of such (but he ate it, God rest his soul).
judy.blog@gmail.com says
So many people do things so many different ways. I feel like there’s so much I don’t know. I wish I could spend time with a bunch of grandmas every day and learn from them. So much is lost when we lose our grandparents and great grandparents.