Garden Spot Moments
Small Town View- New Holland, Pennsylvania
More than 5000 people call the borough of New Holland home. Highway 23
Slow Cooker Recipe
Hamburger Vegetable Soup
written by Tina, Assistant Manager at The Good Cooking Store
Tina bakes bread as recreation because she’s good at it and because she loves to eat it. Her cake-baking and cake-decorating hobby has turned into baking wedding cakes for her many friends that astound them and their guests. Here we get a tiny view into her early love of food. –Phyllis Pellman Good
I grew up in northwest Ohio. Many of our family vacations included a trip 5 hours north to visit my mom’s parents in Michigan. One of my fondest memories of these childhood trips was not the drive itself, although I do believe that this is where I got my love of road trips, but rather what awaited us at Grandma’s house: Hamburger Vegetable Soup.
We would walk in the door of Grandma’s house to her warm welcome. Not that she was always physically present…often we had to hunt for her out in the garden or down the road at my uncle’s farm. But the smell of warm soup on the stove always greeted us, no matter where Grandma might be.
She had a knack for making this soup, probably because she made it so many times for so many traveling children and grandchildren as a homecoming soup. Her blend of vegetables varied depending on what was in her freezer or ripe in her garden, but the staples were always the same: hamburger, carrots, celery, peas, and often potatoes. And when we tasted it, we knew we were with Grandma.
Grandma is gone now, but the Hamburger Vegetable Soup tradition remains. My mom prepares it for weary travelers, my aunt has welcomed many people into her home with it, and it has become a recipe I often turn to as I entertain as well.
I found this great slow-cooker variation to Grandma’s Hamburger Vegetable Soup. While it isn’t her exact recipe, the taste and smell still evoke my wonderful memories of Grandma.
Hamburger Vegetable Soup
Fix-It and Forget-It Diabetic Cookbook, page 135
Makes 8 servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 5 hours
Ideal Slow Cooker size: 4-quart
Ingredients:
½ lb. ground beef, browned, drained, and patted dry with paper toweling
1 beef bouillon cube, crushed
5 tsp. salt-free beef bouillon powder
16-oz. can stewed tomatoes
1 large onion, diced
¾ cup sliced celery
1 medium carrot, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 bay leaf
½ tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1-2 cups water, depending upon how much liquid you like soup to have
10-oz pkg. frozen peas
3 Tbsp. chopped parsley
1. Combine all ingredients except peas and parsley in slow cooker.
2. Cover. Cook on Low 5 hours.
3. Stir in peas during last hour.
4. Garnish with parsley before serving.
I have made hamburger soup for years I also add chopped cabbage, but not chopped fine, I leave it good size. Really adds to the soup!!
> sounds yummy
Sounds really good but like Carla I would add cabbage…I love the flavor of cabbage in a vegetable soup!!!
Sounds great will fix this weekend for football day.
Well LOL, like Carla and Marlene, I also add chopped cabbage to my vegetable beef soup. I also switch it up sometimes and use ground sausage instead of the ground beef and it’s also very good…
The cabbage sounds good; when do you add it – with the peas at the last hour?
This soup sounds very much like a soup we use to get every Thursday from a little Deli where the owner made a different homemade soup Monday thru Thursday. It was called Race Track Soup and I for one had it every Thursday during the fall and winter. I never had the recipe though and the owner has since passed on. I am certainly going to give this a try.
Looks like a nice recipe! I’m going to try it, but instead of beef bullion – which often contains MSG (a neurotoxin!) even if the label doesn’t list it — it can be hidden in ingredients like “flavoring” — I’m going to use homemade chicken broth. (You can easily make homemade broth by baking or boiling a chicken, deboning it, and then boiling the bones in a large kettle of water along w/some of your favorite herbs, for at least 24 hours – this broth provides many health benefits, including providing lots of minerals from the bones. I make it ahead and freeze it in temperature-proof glass containers.) I’ve found that homemade chicken broth tastes fine a beef soup or stew.
> I remember my grandmother making her own broth. When you do the bones, either chicken or beef, how much water do you use? Enough to cover? Silly question probably but have never made it.
Also, if you don’t have your own broth, use Organic Better than Boullion. It is a paste, all natural, very low sodium. You can get chicken or beef. I buy mine at Costco.
I use both hamburger & ground sausage.
I have made this for years and my children love it
I had 5 children and had to strech the budget and this does a wonderful job
also add cabbage at times/It is great to clean out veg out of freezer and what ever else I had/
I make this and use a bag of the chopped cabbage and carrot mix that is meant to be used in making cole slaw.
sometimes when its almost done I add about a cup of my homemade salsa to make it a bit spicer and I freeze chunked up zucchinis and use that instead of potatos. NO one knows the difference.
A way to speed up prep time. I will buy ground beef in bulk & go ahead & fry it up.. Then drain & cool. Divide it into equal packages & freeze. I usually will buy 10 pounds on sale & fix 10 packages. Then when I make spagetti or soup all I need to do is add the precooked meat. Saves lots of time in the morning when I am using my cp.
Great idea, Cindy! This soup looks so yummy with the cooler weather approaching, and I like all the different ideas for ingredients.
i really hate the fact that i HAVE to have a dam yahoo account to e-mail this to my e-mail!! i DONT use yahoo i use gmail!!!
Just copy and paste the body of the email and send it from your own email site…
)
I haven’t tried this but reading all of the ideas everyone has . I am going to make this tonight and try it . Thank you for the great idea
I make an easy, fast version of this with frozen meatballs, frozen mixed veggies (the kind with green beans, carrots, peas, etc.), dry onion soup mix, and canned spaghetti sauce. Add a little water to thin the liquid. Less than five minutes to get it into the pot, and it really tastes great at the end of a long day. You can add noodles or whatever you like at the end. It’s also great with a couple cans of your favorite chili instead of the spaghetti sauce.
I think I would use 1 lb. hamburger, eliminate beef bouillon and cube and substitute 1 can beef broth. I would then either eliminate water or use it sparingly and would definitely add cabbage in at the beginning of the cooking process.
I make this all the time sometimes use beef stew meat always use beef broth to much salt other wise I add sliced potatoes cabbage makes your kitchen stink like fart …
I too would add the cabbage, as I always do to my veggie soup, For the liquid, I use one small can of low sodium beef broth, and a bottle of spicy V-8 juice (or regular if I don’t have it). It gives it just a little bite (not too much), and adds a depth of flavor. To answer an earlier question, put the cabbage in at the start, since it is a longer cooking veggie.
Thanks Karen for your recipe of veggie soup, sounds real good! I’m in the process of making the hamburger veggie soup now and it’s making my whole house smell wonderful! I too added cabbage and picked up a fresh loaf of french bread to go with it.
Yum! This is a keeper recipe.
I love hamburger soup. I also put 1 c uncooked brown rice in it! Mmmmmmmm!!
Been making this type of soup for years & everyone seems to love it. I like to add barley to the mix or maybe even some elbow macaroni about 2/3 thru the cooking time. Love the cabbage in it, too. Good way to use leftover veggies!
> I make hamburger soup too that everyone loves. I usually add elbow macaroni. Hamburg soup is my FAVORITE!!
I have made “hamburger soup” for years… Since my children were small and I’m now a gr-grandma…. Mine is similar to this one, but I alway use potatoes, don’t use the cabbage (use that in my veggie soup with hotdogs)..
As some of family didn’t like the peas, used green beans instead, and always add some tomato juice to the water..about half and half.. Also some basil …This is a great “dump” soup… clean out the fridge and dump whatever…..
EXCELLENT!! made it yesterday. The only thing I changed was to use a beef base instead of bouillon
I make a yummy hamburger veggie soup, everyone just loves it!! My kids are adults now & i have 7 grandkids, and they all ask for it! I too use V-8 juice in mine, along with the frozen veggies, but i have to have the lima beans in mine. I have thought about using some cabbage, love cabbage!! I’m gonna give that a try next time around….Its an easy, yummy warm the tummy soup!!!