Photo taken from elanaspantry.com
Even though spring is almost here (on or around March 21) it is still officially winter. Initially, I was not a big fan of soup but I found myself wanting more and more soup during the winter months. This caused me to make a hearty soup to satisfy these cravings and boy-oh-boy was it good! Here is my very own recipe for a beef soup that is sure to warm the soul.
Ingredients:
Fresh Pumpkin (you don’t need a whole pumpkin. A couple of hearty pieces will do) Tip: The richer you want the soup the more pumpkin you will need
1-2 packs of beef chuck (try to get the pieces with some bone it in; I believe this adds to the flavor of the soup)
5 Carrots chopped
4-5 Potatoes (with or without skin)
2-3 Cups of white flour and water for dumplings (you cannot have this soup without it)
A handful of Spaghetti
Garlic Powder
Black Pepper
Salt
Paprika
Hot Sauce
Photo taken from Caribbeanpot.com
Directions:
1. Fill a pot with water. And boil the water. The size of the pot will depend on the amount of soup you want to make. Peel and cut the pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin into square chunks and boil the pumpkin in the pot of water. The pumpkin will eventually melt and become a delicious base for the soup.
2. Next, wash your meat. You can use vinegar, lime, lemon, etc. to wash your meat. After you have washed your meat season your meat with your salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and paprika and add it to the pot that you have boiling with pumpkin. Because the meat is cooked for so long in this recipe it will become tender and will flavor the soup nicely.
Tip :You want to make sure you turn down the heat because you don’t want the soup to burn. Remember as you add more ingredients stir the pot to prevent food from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.
3. Wash, peel and chop your carrots. Add them to your boiling pot.
4. Wash, peel (if you desire) and cut your potatoes into thick chunks and add them to your boiling pot.
5. Make the dumplings and add them to your boiling pot. See how to make dumplings below.
6. Grab a handful of spaghetti break it in half and add it to the boiling pot.
7. Add more seasoning; salt, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and hot sauce to get the flavor of the soup to your liking.
Note: Because pumpkin is so thick it can tend to soak up the water (liquid) in the soup after and sometimes before the soup has been refrigerated. If this is the case no need to worry; just add more water to your soup and add more seasoning to retain the flavor. Enjoy! 🙂
How to make dumplings:
Dumplings is a simple food that uses flour (we will use white flour) and water.
1. Take your 2-3 cups of white flour and put it in a bowl. Slowly add water (you want to have enough water to make the flour stick together.) The flour and water mixture should begin to look like dough.
2. Once you’ve added enough water, kneed the dough into a big ball.
3. Next take little pieces of the dough and shape them into dumplings. You can shape them into little pancakes, balls, or logs. I usually do a combination of pancake dumplings and log dumplings.
Total Cost: Estimated at $22
Cost Per Serving: Estimated at $3.14 per serving
