21st of September, 13 vegetable soup

So the 21st of September brought us our first rainy, cool day this fall.  I got all excited about our first fall soup day.  Meaning it was cool enough that cooking soup in the house wouldn't lead to overheated crankiness.  Taking my son home from school the radio played Earth Wind and Fire's "September".  "Do you remember?  The 21st day of September?" 

​I wondered how many veggies I could cram into the soup to celebrate the end of summer and fresh growing veggies.  Here's what I came up with.  If you count the veggies in the nomato soup, (beets, fresh basil, fresh garlic, butternut squash as well as duplicate veggies already present in the soup), I believe the total of different veggies is Thirteen. 

​Fry in soup pot until crisp:
6 slices bacon cut into pieces
take bacon out and let drain on paper towel

dump out most of bacon grease, leaving just a little

sauté:
1.5 onion
1 whole bunch of celery rinsed and chopped
6-8 carrots peeled and sliced

dump sautéed veggies out into a bowl

in the soup pot
fry up 7 lbs of hamburger

add beef broth

chop and add:
4 bags frozen green beans
1 whole cabbage
1 small red cabbage
8 turnips
sweet potatoes (I used three bags cubed)
cubed zucchini (I used about 8)
4 cups nomato soup from the freezer.  (Substituting for the can or two of tomatoes I would usually add.)

Lessons learned
this got way too big for my huge pot so the amounts need scaled back.

I also used all beef broth from the freezer from Sunday roasts. This made it pretty salty. It would be better to use maybe one of those and Costco broth.

I think the soup was better before I added the nomato soup, so I’m not sure I love it for a replacement for canned tomatoes in this recipe. I didn’t have straight nomato sauce, or I would have tried that instead.  As it was, the flavors ended up melding and we all really enjoyed it.  We are still enjoying it from the freezer (and it's definitely cool enough to appreciate soup now).