Really Good Vegetable Soup

My mom's vegetable soup

(Note: this is a copy from my original blog, "Creative Thoughts" and was first posted in 2005.  It is worth repeating!)

My mother makes the best vegetable soup in the world. Even people who don't like vegetables like this soup, because it has a nice, mild flavor. We especially like it with Premium Saltine crackers. Here is the recipe:

Grandma McNally’s
Vegetable Soup
Grandma says: “Start with a soup bone and I watch for chuck roast to be on sale and use that for the meat. Boil the bone and meat. Put in jars and refrigerate overnight...this enables you to take all the fat from the top. Then cut up 2 ½ cups celery, 1 large can diced tomatoes, 2 med. onions, 2 med. carrots, ½ head cabbage, 2 med. potatoes. Salt and pepper to taste

Put cabbage and potatoes in last 20 minutes to half hour. Just cook it all up. If the broth doesn’t seem strong enough, I sometimes add some beef cubes or granules. Cut up the meat and put it in at the last minute. Enjoy!
What I do, myself, is buy a chuck steak and cut the meat off and freeze it. I just keep adding the meat to a bag. Then I boil the bones for several hours. I do this several times over several weeks until I have 4 mayonnaise jars of broth. Take the broth and the meat out of the freezer about 2 days ahead to let it thaw in fridge. You can do it with just 2, but I like to make a double-batch because there never seems to be enough, it is soooo good. I also just throw it all together, I don't wait to put the cabbage or potato in.
Delicious!