Two for One: Vegetable Soup with Pasta & Cheesy Potato Soup

"When baking, follow directions.  When cooking, go by your own taste."
- Laiko Bahrs

I am one of those people who loves vegetable soup.  I love it with meat, I love it with beans, I love it with pasta, I love it with barley, I love it with just vegetables.  As far as I'm concerned there are few ways to mess up a pot of vegetable soup - except with too much salt!  I've been trying out menu planning, and I will eventually (probably in 3-4 weeks) get my sample menu and weekly shopping lists up so you all can check them out.  To that end, today was Veggie Soup day on my calendar.  My four-year-old daughter, Emelyn, helped me plan the menu, and shockingly enough she loves vegetable soup almost as much as I do (may have something to do with the cornbread on the side).  My mom was helping tonight by peeling and dicing potatoes, and she dumped too many in the sink to wash.  So we ended up with two soups on the table, which suited everyone fine (except my two-year-old son, Jaxson, who splattered his everywhere).  Have fun with these just-right-for-fall soups.

Vegetable Soup with Pasta

1 can each: 

   - green beans

   - corn

   - peas

   - carrots (I had none, hence their absence in pictures)

   - diced tomatoes

   - chicken broth

   - condensed tomato soup

   - tomato sauce

   - you can also add a can of Garbanzo beans

3-5 medium potatoes, washed, peeled, diced (1/2")

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni

1 cup water

1.  Empty all cans into large heavy-bottomed stockpot or Dutch oven.  Add potatoes.  Stir to combine.  Bring to boil, reduce to simmer.  Simmer gently over medium-low heat (may have to turn up to medium depending on size of your pot) uncovered until potatoes are fork tender but not falling apart (approx. 45 min).

2.  Add elbow macaroni and cook until tender.  The pasta will absorb a fair amount of the liquid in the soup!!!  This is where the water comes in handy.  Once the pasta has cooked, remove the soup from the heat and add the cup of water if needed.  You may not need it, I did.  I wouldn't have if I had removed it from the cap as soon as it was tender, but I left it sitting and it kept absorbing...

Cheesy Potato Soup

~3 lb Potatoes, washed, peeled, diced (1/2")

1 lb Velveeta

Water

Salt to taste

1.  Dice potatoes directly into small amount of water in large heavy-bottomed stockpot or Dutch oven.  Add enough water to barely cover the potatoes, and salt to taste.  You will not be draining this, so go easy on the salt.  No one that I know likes brined potatoes.

2.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce to medium-low and simmer until potatoes are easy to smash with a fork.

3.  Slice Velveeta directly into soup.  Stir until melted.  And of course, once you have the soups almost done, whip up a batch of White Lily Cornbread to have along with it.

Mom's Spaghetti Meat Sauce

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again."
- George Miller

This is the spaghetti sauce I grew up eating.  To some that might seem strange.  Not many kids enjoy eating mushrooms, peppers, and onions.  Go ahead, call me weird.  I don't mind at all.  The only thing that would make this recipe, and the resulting sauce, any better (and more authentic to my childhood, mind you) would be if Spice Islands would suddenly bring back their spaghetti seasoning.  Hear my plea, Spice Islands!  At any rate, this is a pretty quick and easy sauce to throw together.  You can simmer it all day if you'd like, or it can be done in about 45 minutes (including picture taking time here, folks).  It all depends on how tender you like your veggies to be.  Me?  I don't mind a little crunch.  You can easily increase the size of the batch, since everything is in ones.  When we double (ahem, quadruple) the recipe, whatever we don't use immediately we freeze for later use.  If you do this, just be sure to either use freezer zipper bags (lay them flat on a rimmed pan with the bag folded just under the zipper, resting on the rim - once they are solid, stack them or stand them up) or freezer-safe lidded plastic or glass containers.  Do not, under any circumstances, freeze or store this in metal.  The acid from the tomatoes will do very unpleasant things to the metal and also taint the sauce.

Mom's Spaghetti Meat Sauce

1 can Campbell's condensed tomato soup

1/2 can of water (use soup can)

1 (15 oz) can Hunt's tomato sauce

1 Tb Italian seasoning (or more if you like it herbier)

1 lb ground beef

1 bell pepper, diced

1 onion, diced

1 (4oz) can mushroom stems and pieces, drained, diced

1 lb spaghetti or angel hair pasta

1 loaf crusty bread (Italian, French, etc)

1. Dice pepper, onion, and mushrooms.

2. Mix soup, water, sauce, seasoning, pepper, onion, and mushrooms together in large, heavy-bottomed (to prevent sticking/scorching) pot or Dutch oven.  Simmer over medium-high heat.  If it starts to splatter everywhere, turn it down a notch or two.

3. Start your pasta water heating so it will be boiling by the time you finish this step.  Brown beef over medium heat, drain, add to sauce.  Stir to mix.  Simmer sauce over medium-low heat until spaghetti is done.

4. Prepare your favorite type of spaghetti or angel hair pasta (or any other pasta for that matter) according to package directions.

5. Using tongs, remove pasta from cooking water and add to sauce.  Stir thoroughly.  My biggest complaint here is that the sauce tends to want to sink to the bottom, so you might want to turn the spaghetti out into a serving platter or large bowl so most of the sauce is on top.

6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Slice bread into thick (~2") slices and place on a baking sheet.  I used a pizza pan with vent holes in it.  Bake for 5 minutes, just until the bread is heated through.

7. Serve the spaghetti with pre-grated parmesan (or freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano) and bread with butter.