I made vegetable soup for dinner tonight.....and guess what?!?!  Everyone ate it!!  Due to everyone each having their "thing" I also made turkey sausage in a bowl on the side to increase the protein for those that wanted that and a bowl of pasta for those that wanted that.  I put them on the table and each person could add to their soup bowl whatever they wanted.

The soup was pretty simple.  I had about 8 cups of beef broth and stock....a combo due to the broth being cheaper, but the stock adding more flavor.  I went half broth/half stock.  To that I added carrots, shreds of cabbage, dark kidney beans (about half a can), sliced zucchini, and a whole can of fire roasted crushed tomatoes. For seasoning, I added about 1t fresh ground pepper, same amount of salt, 1T red wine vinegar, 3 bay leaves and 3 cubes of basil and 3 cubes of garlic.  When I say cubes, I like Dorot products.  The grocery store I work at carries it as does Trader Joe's.  It is in the frozen section and had a red cover.  It is a great product to keep in your freezer.

I kept the soup on the stove on low flame for about 1 hour. This helped the flavor to become more concentrated and yummy. I went back and stirred it every so often to make sure nothing got too overcooked in the bottom of the pan.

A new thing I did this time that I always had heard of but never did was to add parmesan cheese rinds.  I asked the cheese guy at work to save me some.  He gave them to me for no charge.  I put 3 rinds in the soup while it cooked.  I took them out when the soup was done cooking and served shaved parmesan cheese on the side.

This was a great, healthy supper!!