A Bowl of Comfort

Last week I woke up on Sunday morning with a strong urge to cook. I ate great all week but now I need to take the leftover bones and make bone-broth and soup. I had pork roast bones and chicken bones so I decided to throw them into the crock-pot together.

Vegetable soup is one of my favorite for good reason. It's healthy, filling and more satisfying than canned soup. You can make it as flavorful as you want it to be.

Some of my fondest childhood memories growing up is coming home from school to a hot bowl of soup. My mom called it "Hagler's special". The meat base ranged from leftover chicken, beef or pork roast or ground beef.

To round out the meal she would make cornbread, from scratch, there were no box mixes in Katie Bea's kitchen, ice tea, baked sweet potatoes and fried apple or cherry hand pies.

I'm drooling, smiling and missing mama.

The BEST Vegetable Soup ever!

The best and tastiest vegetable soup that is not only delicious and bowl sipping good is to use your favorite vegetables. Prep and cooking is a breeze, a bit of chopping and a bit simmering. Bonus benefit is that you'll have some great leftovers and you can freeze some for when you don't feel like cooking.

What Vegetables Should You Add?

You can put whatever vegetables you like, fresh or frozen. Here is a list of what I used:

• celery
• yellow onion
• bell pepper
• spinach (fresh)
• kale (frozen)
• cauliflower (fresh)
• jalapeno pepper (seeded)

Adding Extra Flavor and Texture

Although this soup started out as a vegetable soup but as usual when I start mixing other favorites ended up in the pot. As I mentioned above I used the bones from my left over pork roast and rosterrie chicken. When I removed the bones from the pot I shredded the meat that had cooked off the bones.

Then I added some Yellow-eyes beans in with the vegetables. And because when I tasted it I felt like it needed more flavor I added in some amthyest basil and a dash of butt rub. I plan to squeeze 1/2 a lemon when I bowl it for a little extra humph.

Here's a few ides of what you can add:

• fresh or dried herbs such as rosemary, basil, thyme, or oregano.
• Dried herb blends such as Italian seasoning or herbs de Provence.
• Crushed red pepper flakes for a little heat.
• Paprika or a curry powder.
• Parmesan rind to the pot while simmering.

And that's it. A bowl of deliciousness. I'm a old school cook meaning I don't measure anything. I'm more of a little of that and a bit of that a smidging of this, but I wrote the receipe for you. In the receipe I omitted the cooking of the bones for the bone broth assuming you already have some on hand or purchsed some. Without that part of it the soup should take an hour from prep to table.

Servings: 10

Ready in: 60 minutes

Prep: 15 minutes

Cook: 40 minutes

Bowl to table or table to bowl: 5 minutes

Ingredients

1 whole yellow onion (medium)
2 cups cauliflower florets (small)
4 celery stalks (chopped)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 boxes of bone broth chicken, beef or vegetable (mix a couple)
2 whole bell peppers (chopped)
1 bunch of fresh spinach
1 bag of frozen Kale
1 whole seeded jalapeno pepper (medium)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried basil
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon of Butt Rub (from COSTCO)
2 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

1. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat
2. Add onions, celery, bell pepper and saute 4 minutes then add garlic and saute 30 seconds longer
3. Add in broth, cauliflower, kale, rosemary, butt rub, basil and season with salt and pepper to taste
4. Bring to a boil
5. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until cauliflower is almost tender about 20-30 minutes
6. Add in spinach and cook for 5 - 10 minutes longer. Serve warm.

Tips:

• For more flavor add in more dried herbs (triple the amount). Another good choice is to add in Italian seasoning.
• Another option to add more flavor is to use homemade bone broth or roasted vegetable broth.
• You can also add fresh corn from the cob, then scrape the juice from the corn cob.
• I'm not a cheese person but friends have told me that adding a parmesan rind in the soup take it to another level.
• Optionally you can finish servings with a splash of fresh lemon juice or lemon olive oil.