Spring is in the air. We’ve started our seeds and are dreaming of our summer vegetable garden. Only one little problem…we still have half a freezer full of veggies from last year! We need to finish up what we spent so much time preserving last year before we are overrun with this year’s harvest. What do we do with the random leftover frozen vegetables in the freezer? One of our favorite ways to utilize a little bit of this and little bit of that is this spicier take on clean-out-the-freezer vegetable soup.
The original version of this recipe came from an old Weight Watcher’s cookbook that my mom used to have. However, it called for a few different processed foods (things like bouillon cubes) that we no longer purchase. So we’ve greatly adapted the recipe to create our own version of clean-out-the-freezer vegetable soup to fit our “inconvenient food” lifestyle.
Ingredient Swaps
We’ve also swapped out some ingredients for veggies that we grow. We grow an heirloom variety of cowpeas that we’ve seed-saved for years, so we swapped the black-eyed peas for their cousin whippoorwill cowpeas. I don’t personally love lima beans, so we add some extra green beans to the pot. So feel free to experiment and create your own family-favorite version of this recipe. What makes this soup is the spiced tomato juice base, the rest is 100% mix and match!
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Originally, the soup base was Mrs. T’s Bloody Mary Mix. If you need a shortcut to making the recipe and can tolerate some flavoring additives, it does make the preparation of this soup an easy dump-and-go recipe. Just swap the spice list and the tomato juice in the recipe for the pre-mixed bottles. However, if you’re like me and have food sensitivities, we have replicated the delicious bloody mary flavor with spices you probably already have in your kitchen cabinet.
Another switch we’ve made in this recipe is eliminating the beef bouillon cubes. I (Rebecca) am unable to eat much glutamate, so anything with MSG is a big no-no for my gut health. When researching low-glutamate alternatives, we stumbled across this vegetarian broth mix that has worked great as a sub for the ubiquitous bouillon cube or powder called for in so many soup recipes. It uses powders and spices we already have in the spice cabinet and is easy to mix together a larger batch to have on hand for simple measurement later. We use about a half tablespoon of it to replace each cube called for in a recipe.
This makes a very large pot of soup that can feed a crowd or it reheats great as leftovers. It freezes fantastic as well! We like freezing the soup in 1 or 2 servings sizes to pull out of the freezer on busy weeknights or for a quick lunch. We’ve even been known to travel with a cooler full of frozen soups on vacation to keep the trip budget-friendly while eating delicious homemade food without a pile of dishes to clean up afterwards.
Ingredients
- 1 lb stew beef, bite-sized chunks
- 2 cups chopped onions
- 28 oz can diced tomatoes
- 3 bay leaves
- Ground pepper and salt, to taste
- Bloody Mary base (see below)
- 3 TBS vegetarian broth powder (see link)
- 1 tsp tabasco sauce (more if you like it spicier)
- 2 ½ cups chopped/snapped green beans (fresh or frozen)
- 1 ½ cup corn kernels (fresh or frozen)
- 2 cups cowpeas, cooked (or black-eyed peas)
- ½ head shredded cabbage
- 1 ½ cup chopped carrots (fresh or frozen)
Bloody Mary Base
- 2- 46 oz tomato juice bottles
- 8 TBS lemon juice
- 6 TBS jalapeño juice (the liquid from the canned jalapeno pickles)
- 6 TBS vinegar
- 4 TBS sugar
- 2 tsp horseradish
- ½ tsp pepper
- ¼ tsp onion powder
- ⅛ tsp garlic powder
Directions
- Cut meat into bite-sized pieces and then brown in skillet until cooked through.
- Sauté onion with a little bit of oil in large stockpot until translucent. If my carrots are frozen, I usually add them during this step to help them thaw and cook more evenly.
- Add all other ingredients to the stockpot
- Simmer for 30 minutes or so until flavors meld and veggies are cooked.
P.S. Leftovers freeze great!
The spices and flavors meld together so well making the leftovers taste even better the following day. We hope you love this spicy and flavorful take on clean-out-the-freezer vegetable soup as much as we do! Check out our other homestead kitchen recipes for more tasty ways to cook with homegrown food. Happy cooking!
