Vegetable Soup

  Vegetable soup is another one of those foods that is synonymous with the cooler weather of fall. Making the soup also gives us a way to use up all of last year's frozen vegetables that didn't get used up as well as any new fresh vegetables that are available. Usually around the cabbage harvest is when we make our soup, so for our location it is around mid October or so. This is definitely one of our comfort foods and it fills the house with a smell that is so nice to walk in to. This is not necessarily a definitive recipe so to speak, as with many of our recipes it is more of a guide and we use whatever we have available.

Vegetable Soup (Makes about 12 quarts)

2 quarts vegetable stock

2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes with basil

3 quarts frozen crushed tomatoes (from last year)
2 quarts frozen sweet corn (from last year)
2 quarts frozen Lima Beans (from last year)
2 quarts frozen green peas (from this year)
1 quart frozen yellow squash (from last year)
1 medium head of cabbage, sliced medium thin
1 quart of fresh carrots, course chop
1/4 c fresh parsley, course chop
3 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
2 tsp garlic powder

  We used a 15 quart pot to make the soup. I added only enough water to get the pot up between the 14 and 15 quart mark. It will cook down to about the 12 quart level. We add everything to the pot and brought it to nearly boiling and simmered it for about 8 hours. Be sure to taste it at least at the halfway point to adjust any of the seasoning components. Stir it every now and then to keep the soup from scorching. If the soup does scorch, don't scrape the stuck bits on the bottom of the pot. This will contaminate the whole pot. Just transfer it to an appropriately sized container and clean the soup pot or use another one if you have it to spare. If you are going to eat it right away or freeze it then it should be ready to go.

  If you are going to can the soup here are a few things to remember:

• Don't add any starch components to the soup like pasta, potatoes or thickening agents. You can add these things when you heat the canned soup for consumption.
• You can cook the soup for 2 hours less because the canning time is 1.5 hours.
• Do this when you have enough time to can the soup after making it. We can only do 5 quarts at a time and since we canned 10 quarts total we had about 4 hours of canning time after making the soup. If time is tight, you can make the soup one night and store it in the refrigerator (after it cools) and then can it the next night. Just remember to get the soup back up to near boiling before jarring.

  We put ours in hot clean quart jars and processed them in a pressure canner for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. This was the first time we canned it and we have sampled the final product and it is wonderful. We will definitely do this again!

TTFN

B