Made a great soup.....perfect for these winter days.  I chop up onions (I like sweet onions) and carrots and saute them in the bottom of the soup pot with some olive oil.  It gets a bit brown, then I added 4 cubes of basil and 6 cubes of garlic, as well as 1t oregano. I added in 1T of red wine vinegar, a large can of tomato puree, 2 boxes of beef broth, 1 small can of fire roasted tomatoes, 1 can garbanzo beans, frozen cut green beans, and frozen lima beans (the amount is your choice).  I also cut up some green cabbage and put it in the soup.  I browned turkey sweet Italian sausage in another pan - for people to add in into the soup if they wanted more protein.  As you know, I always like to have flexibility to what I served since everyone likes things different.  I let the soup cook on a very low flame for about 1 hour.  It was SO rich and delicious!

Wow...does that look good!  It is great because you can really add in whatever you want....I would add corn, but my husband can't have that.  I would also like to add in some spinach....but no one likes that.  Zucchini as well....again no one likes that either!!  Oh well....some vegis are better than no vegis!

Let's talk briefly about winter.  Do you love it - do you hate it?  I love it - well, that is I love everything about winter except for the early darkness.  Not much gets me down as much as when it is pitch black out at 4:30pm....do you call that night or still afternoon?!?!  Everything else about winter is great....the clothes, the snow (yes, I said the snow), the cold temperature (yes to that too) and we can't forget about the foods. There are definitely winter foods....soup, chili, slow cooker recipes, squash.  What do people in always warm climates do....never eat chili??  Never eat homemade vegetable soup?? Never eat butternut squash?? I just can't imagine that!!!  How sad........