Old Standby Hamburger Soup

EVERY family has a version of a hamburger soup in their recipe file - and this one is ours.  It couldn’t be easier - the hardest thing is remembering to thaw out a pound of ground beef.  We love the texture, which is right in between a broth and a creamy tomato - which is accomplished by two little tricks.

My grown kids are getting too accustomed to having this blog at their fingertips.  I know that because they occasionally call me and ask “Mom... WHY isn’t ________ on your BLOG?  I had to look it up in the cookbook!”  (the equivalent to having to watch a VHS tape?)  All I reply to that is “Life is hard!”  

There are many recipes that most of us just have memorized.  Then there are others that we make often, but not often enough to remember all the proportions.  This is one of those.  So now I’m posting it so those kids don't have to 'look it up'.  

Hamburger soup is what I would call a “just good soup” recipe.  I always made this when I had warm bread coming out of the oven at dinnertime.  My kids used to enjoy breaking up slices of cheese in the soup, giving it a little stir, and then “finding” the melted cheese as they ate.  Funny how you remember little things like that...

The two little tricks I always used to keep the soup between broth-y and creamy are these...  1) Boil the macaroni JUST until it starts to soften, and then keep part of the water you boiled it in to add to the soup (details are in the recipe).  2) Use a plain old can of condensed tomato soup - undiluted of course.

I use my home-canned tomatoes and dice them before adding to the soup.  I love finding those chunks of tomatoes amongst the macaroni and beef.  

So... on those cold evenings when you have nowhere to go, and don’t necessarily care to “wow” your family - you can’t go wrong with this great standby soup. 

For the recipe, go to:
www.changeabletable.com