Because it's been a while...

This shabbos, I decided we were due for some time at home. So, I decided to make a soup shabbos, for simplicity. I made a huge pot of chicken soup (with kreplach) and some fish for dinner. I have enough of that left over to last quite a while, so I'm going to freeze some of it for later.

For lunch, I took the minestrone soup recipe from this post but made a couple changes. First, I halved the recipe, because I needed it to fit in my crockpot. Second, I added some beef. Third, I took out the beans, green beans, and spinach, because I didn't really like them in the original soup. So what I ended up with was a REALLY good, hearty soup. It's perfect for Fall and Winter, and was really quick and easy to throw together. This is a meal soup, not a starter course. Here's the new-ish recipe:

Beef Minestrone Soup


Ingredients:

• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
  
• 1 small onion OR half of one large onion, diced
  
• 1 lb flanken beef, cubed
• 3 carrots, chunks
  
• 2 zucchinis, chunks
  
• 3 stalks celery, chunks
  
• 2-3 cups tomato sauce
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup water (I actually just used about 2 cups of stock, because I had it)
• 1/4-1/2 cup red wine (I may have used a bit much of this for the amount of soup I was making because I eyeballed it, but the soup came out delicious, anyway)
• 1/2 tablespoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon basil
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan on the stove over medium-low heat.
2. Sear the beef in the oil, and remove the beef to your crock pot.
3. Saute the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent, then add to crock pot.
4. Throw in all the other ingredients. Cook on low until lunch (or whatever temperature you'd usually cook cholent on in your crock pot. I've noticed that pretty much all crock pots are different, so know yours and adjust accordingly.)
5. {Note: When I woke up in the morning and went to check on this soup, it was boiling slightly, so I removed it to the blech instead of leaving it in the crockpot until lunch.}