hot soup

This weather makes you want to have hot soup and toasted cheese; this recipe combines them. My favorite soup...one of my favorite soups

Hearty Beef Chowder

adapted from More Make-A-Mix Cookery

• 1 1/2 cups chopped celery
• 1/2 cups diced onion fry in the bottom of your large saucepan with
• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, pressed added to the above mixture
• 1 lb lean ground beef fry in fry pan same time as the celery/onion mixture
• Add 3 Tablespoons flour to celery mixture (you are making cream of celery soup)
• 2 cups milk added to the flour/celery mix when the flour has almost browned
• add meat to large saucepan and
• 4 cups tomato juice (or V-8)
• 1 cup water
• 2 1/2 cups grated carrots
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper (or more..)
• a dash of hot sauce or chili pepper. Cook about 30 minutes and add
• thin slices of Swiss cheese to each bowl and spoon soup on top. Serve immediately.

Yummy dish of warmth and goodness.

I crave this soup; can I brave our 28 degree morning (with wind chill of 17) ? (I know you are scoffing at our paltry cold but ..I don't even have a coat or gloves, the few days it is cold I borrow my husbands and he wore his to work this morning! ) to go out and buy some hamburger and Swiss cheese?

You can substitute 2 cans of cream of celery soup for the milk and flour; you may need to thin it a bit with milk. I haven't made it with the soup since 1981.