Clean-Out-The-Fridge Vegetable Stew (Recipe 38 of 125)

This recipe confused me. It says it's a vegetable soup, but ground beef was on the list of ingredients. After reading the REAL recipe on their website I see why it says ground beef. The real recipe calls for "meatless crumbles". I'm 100% positive I said no thank you to meatless crumbles and swapped it with ground beef. 

Ahem. 

Here's the thing, this recipe was SPOT on. It was a great vegetable soup that will definitely be a keeper. It's simple and flavorful. A couple of thoughts:

1. You don't need the meatless crumbles or ground beef. Just the vegetable side would be filling.

2. I didn't add the potatoes. It felt like there was enough in the soup already. 

3. I used full salt vegetable broth. Doing that I didn't need to add much more salt to the recipe. 

4. I also didn't put in the mushrooms. Two reasons: 1 - I didn't have any and 2 - I don't like mushrooms in veggie soup. 

Clean-Out-The-Fridge Vegetable Stew
Recipe from Eating Well

Serves 6

3 T unsalted butter

1 ½ c chopped yellow onion (from 1 medium onion)

2 medium carrots, cut diagonally into 1 1/2-inch pieces (1 1/2 cups)

3 large garlic cloves, smashed

1 c chopped portobello mushrooms

1 c sliced celery (from 2 large stalks)

4 (15 ounce) cans no-salt-added fire-roasted diced tomatoes

2 c unsalted vegetable stock

1 ½ c thawed frozen corn

6 ounces baby Yukon Gold potatoes (about 8 potatoes), halved

2 c thawed frozen meatless beef crumble

1 c thawed frozen cut green beans

¾ c thawed frozen sweet peas

1 tsp kosher salt

½ tsp black pepper

Melt butter in a large, heavy pot over medium-high. 

Add onion, carrots and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender, about 4 minutes. 

Add mushroom and celery; cook, stirring occasionally, until mushroom starts to soften, about 4 minutes. 

Add tomatoes, stock, corn and potatoes; bring to a boil over high, stirring occasionally. 

Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer until potatoes are almost tender, about 15 minutes. 

Stir in meatless crumbles, green beans, peas, salt and pepper; cover and cook until potatoes are tender, about 5 minutes.

Cooking with ground beef:

I started the veggies in a pan (onions, celery and carrots) sautéing for just a couple of minutes. Then I added the beef and browned it. After that I added everything else.