Hamburger Soup

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Mmmmm...lately it's just all comfort food all the time on this blog!



This is another family favourite...Best of Bridge's delicious Hamburger Soup!  This is one of my mom's best-loved recipes, and totally reminds me of home.  At under 300 calories per bowl yet satisfyingly filling, this is the soup that eats like a meal baby!  When I cook this bad boy I usually make a double batch and freeze half, and that way I can simply defrost for a quick and easy dinner or work lunch a few weeks later.

Ok, so two quick disgusting stories about this soup that should never be told by a food blogger on a food blog that I want people to return to, but I am going to tell anyways.  If you are planning on making this soup today and have a queazy stomach then maybe just skip right below to the recipe.  Here we go...

Story 1:  When I was a teenager, one time my parents left my brother and I at home when they went on vacation.  My mom wanted to make sure we were well fed while they were gone, so before leaving she made a slow cooker full of this Hamburger Soup.  Not knowing my way around the kitchen at all (like, at all!) when I was a teenager, when the slow cooker finished cooking and turned off, I didn't know that meant that eventually I should put into the fridge.  I happily fed my brother and myself leftover counter-top (microwave reheated) Hamburger Soup for a few days, finally noticing near the end of the batch that it was starting to taste a little off.  Ummm...try rancid!!!  I had essentially left a soup with ground beef out of the fridge for days and kept eating it.  My mom honestly must have wondered where she went wrong in raising such an incompetent child.  It took awhile to eat Hamburger Soup again after that.

Story 2:  When I moved out of my parents house into my first apartment, I was missing my mom's cooking from home.  I went to the store and bought all of the ingredients for Hamburger Soup, and spent the entire afternoon making it (I was a slower vegetable chopper back then!).  The final ingredient to add was the barley, which I had purchased in the bulk section of the grocery store.  I dumped the barley in and started noticing that the soup appeared to be crawling.  Ummm....crawling with bugs!!!  The container of barley must have been infested, because only then did I realize that the bag that I had put the barley in was crawling on the inside.  All of my hard work went to waste and I had to dump the whole double batch down the garburator.  The good news was I went back to the grocery store to let them know to clean their bin, and they comped my whole grocery bill from that day!  It took me awhile to eat Hamburger Soup again after that too.

End of gross Hamburger Soup stories.  I'm sorry.  And if you still feel like making it, the recipe is below.

For a printer-friendly version of any recipe, simply click 'Print' below the title of any blog post. Voila - a clean recipe without my ramblings or any pictures!

One Year Ago:  White Chocolate and Cranberry Cheesecake
Two Years Ago:  Easy Peasy Cauliflower Cheesy Soup
Three Years Ago:  Minestrone Soup

Hamburger Soup

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 1 & 1/2 lbs. extra-lean ground beef
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
• 2 cups water
• 3 x 10-ounce cans consomme
• 1 x 10-ounce can condensed tomato soup
• 4 carrots, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 1/2 cup barley
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions
In a large pot over medium-high heat, cook ground beef and onions until the beef is brown.  Drain off all liquid from the pot.  Add all remaining ingredients to pot.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer on low for at least 2 hours, or all day.

Recipe Source:  Best of Bridge 'Best of the Best' Cookbook

Slow Cooker Beef Chili Rice Bowl

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The Hubby put a new cookbook into my Christmas stocking this year - the 'Best of Bridge' Slow Cooker Cookbook. Although this recipe is not from that book, him buying it for me reminded me that a) I have a slow cooker, and b) slow cooking is awesome.

What I don't like is when you have to do a lot of pre-cooking before the slow cooking starts, which just makes me feel like there's no point in finishing things up in the slow cooker in the first place.  What I do like is when you can just throw everything into the slow cooker and press Start.  "Set it and forget it!!" I think people say.  Or maybe that's referring to something else like alarm clocks or my recordings of Real Housewives on the PVR, or each and every single one of my New Years resolutions.  Who knows, but in any event, slow cooking is super easy when all that you have to do is dump stuff into the thing and turn it on.

Traditional Italian Sausage Lasagna

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While I'm on the Italian Sausage bandwagon...

This blog's tagline is The Kitchen Confessional of Megan McLeod...well, here's one for you.  All of the mozzarella cheese that went into this lasagna fell off the counter and onto the floor before I assembled the lasagna.  All of this precariously placed cheese, onto the non-swept floor...

Five second rule!

...and then into a lasagna.  Don't tell The Hubby!!

Second kitchen confessional is that I wear these onion goggles every single time that I cut onions.  They totally prevent my eyes from stinging and crying.  Plus they are obviously super stylish!

Hi 

So, our garage was broken into a couple of weeks ago.

Souper Sunday #16: Beef Lentil Soup

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There's something about eating lentils that makes me feel like I'm being healthy, no matter what they are mixed together with.

 

Using this logic, I could add any ingredient to the soup - whipping cream, a bucket of salt, icing sugar - and it would still be healthy.  Lard and potato chip lentil soup?  Sounds nutritious!  French fry and mayo lentil soup?  Nothing wrong there!

Beef Pot Roast with Root Vegetables

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This is my first ever pot roast.

Ta-Da!

 

Ok, so The Hubby said this is the best thing he has eaten in 2013.  Jackpot!  He seems to make this type of comment only once per year, usually pretty early into the year.  I remember last year when he said the same type of thing in February about Martha Stewart's Tomato and Italian Sausage Risotto.  He knows what he likes this guy.

Souper Sunday #11: Classic Beef Stew

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Classic.

 

Baby, it's (still) cold outside, and this stew felt like the perfect supper today.  Is this a soup?  No, but in my books it's close enough to qualify for Souper Sunday status!

What a great weekend I've had!  Yesterday my awesome mother treated me to lunch and a spa day as a birthday present.  We got facials,  and then I got a massage while she was getting a manicure.  It was so, so nice, and such a treat since the two of us are not really spa types normally.  The spa that we went to was in the mall, so we popped into a few stores, including the bathing suit store for a total of two whole minutes...after just having had a lunch (with wine) and spa day everything in there just looked really...tight.  I'm going to Las Vegas with some friends at the end of this month (And. I. Can't. Freaking. Wait.), so the time came today to go back to the bathing suit store from yesterday and pick out a new bikini.

Lemongrass and Chili Beef in Cucumber Cups

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Refreshing and delicious.

 

My brother and his girlfriend are on the caveman/paleo diet.  And at their house for dinner last Sunday night, so were we.  And, wow, was it ever an amazing dinner.  I didn't know that cavemen ate cayenne pepper infused chocolate cake (so good - I will post the recipe once I get it) or sweet potato soufflé with roast beef, or dairy-free spinach and artichoke dip made with cashew cream instead of milk.

My Granny's Sweet & Sour Meatballs

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This one reminds me of my childhood.  

 

I've been waiting to post this recipe for a long, long time.  Sorry to my brother, who has been waiting to get it from me.  But see, we got a new computer, and the pictures were on the old computer.  And so, it would have required me to plug in the old computer to get a charge going, and then upload the photos from there.  Which would have taken like five minutes or maybe even a little bit more than five minutes.  So, it's understandable.

Growing up, my grandparents lived in Victoria, but as my brother and I got a little bit older, my Granny and Grandpa moved to a home about seven minutes away from our house.  My dad was their only child, and thus my brother and I were their only grandchildren, so we were a tad spoiled by them.  Actually, no, not spoiled, just loved.  A lot.  It was a nice feeling to have my grandparents at things like my softball games or piano recitals, or at my brother's lacrosse games.  We felt like we were their entire world.    

Man Pleasin' Chili

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That's right.

 

Brrrrr!  How did this happen?  A couple of weeks ago it was hot outside.  Then the following week it only appeared to be hot outside from the view of my bedroom or office window - it was that sunny/cold combination that I can't stand because it's so indecisive and deceiving.  And now, the Rainy Season is upon us.

For those that don't live around the lower west coast of British Columbia, Canada, like me, we have a fifth extra season here called The Rainy Season, that typically stretches for about six months of the year, sometimes longer.  Anyone who lives here knows it's going to happen every year, the same as it did the year before that and the year before that.  And even though prior to The Rainy Season starting we had a streak of about 75 days of uninterrupted really nice weather this year, we still reserve the right to complain as soon as The Rainy Season hits.  And complaining is what most people do, except...me.  Call me a freak, but I like when it rains, and I always have.  Especially when I am indoors, with a good book or an even better reality TV episode, The Hubby, a nice glass of wine or cup of tea, and a soup, chili, stew, or something else from the crock pot.  I guess I was born in the right part of the world, because Raincouver (obviously an incredibly smart and very, very funny play on words) is the nickname bestowed upon Vancouver, where I live close to, and as Canada's third most rainy city, we get an average of 161 days and 1200 mm of rain per year

One good thing about this cold, rainy weather that we are having is that it means that I can more than likely convince The Hubby that it's a good idea for me to purchase new boots and a new warm jacket, because, "winter is just around the corner!!"  (Update:  since writing this I bought 1) new boots, 2) a new warm jacket, a 3) a 'few' other things that I needed).

Beef Stroganoff Casserole

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I'm not a huge craver of red meat, but occasionally the mood strikes.  It struck recently, so I made this Beef Stroganoff, and then The Hubby and I devoured it.

Oh, which reminds me that I should mention, but that way, that you need to make this Beef Stroganoff.

I recommend this as a Sunday night dinner, served with some crusty bread and a green salad.  Or, perhaps an extra-extra-large portion reheated on a Monday night with no side dish at all, while you watch The Bachelorette.  Or, even a few bites for breakfast, cold, out of the dish, standing in front of the glaring judgmental light of the refrigerator.  Any of those methods are all good ways to eat this dish, strictly speaking from experience.

This is the best Beef Strogranoff I have EVER eaten, hands down, and is much better than the Hamburger Helper one that I used to eat in my early 20's (slash ate recently when The Hubby made it for me).  There are quite a few steps involved in the dish, but they are all worth it and each one adds great flavour.