Hamburger Soup on cool, rainy SUMMER days in July

Missouri is notorious for extreme weather.  We can have REALLY, REALLY cold weather which included a history-making blizzard this past winter, to super, duper HOT weather (once I worked at school and in one of the classrooms it was 107 at 10AM).  But, with those extremes comes some nice breaks in the weather and we had a few cool days around the 4th of July.  On Thursday, my younger daughter used her personalized recipe book (which I made for her using Shutterfly) to make supper.  She made one of her (and her sister's) favorites, Hamburger Soup.  It has hamburger, garlic, oregano, bay leaves, tomato sauce (of course), pasta, and veges.  Its kind of like spaghetti meets vegetable soup!  Its their favorite and we snarfed it down last night!  I modified this recipe just a tad from a delicious soup recipe that my former boss makes.  He is an attorney and also is a FABULOUS cook. I had never had vegetable soup with garlic in it until I tried his recipe.  It always gets rave reviews. Here's the recipe:

SPAGHETTI MEETS VEGETABLE SOUP
(Hamburger Soup)

(remove the bay leaves BEFORE serving!)  (DO NOT EAT BAY LEAVES)

• 1 to 2 pounds hamburger (we use a little more than 1 pound)
• 1 can crushed tomatoes +  1-8oz can tomato sauce (plus each empty can filled with water) (OR if you don't have crushed tomatoes, which we did not last night, THEN USE 2 -8oz cans of tomato sauce + 2 cans of water)
• 1 can carrots (undrained)
• 3-5 med. potatoes (peeled and chopped)
• 1 can green beans (undrained)
• 1 small can mushrooms (stems & pieces) undrained
• 1 Tablespoon onion powder
• 2 Tablespoons garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon basil or oregano
• 2 bay leaves (large ones so you can find them)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/2 cup additional water
• EXTRA INGREDIENT:  Cook 2 cups macaroni and serve with the soup.  (If you put it in the pot, it gets mushy so we keep it separate and just add to each of our bowls.)

Brown hamburger in a soup pot with the onion powder, or if using real onion, brown with the meat until all clear. Drain. Add all remaining ingredients, including the cans of water and extra water. Crack the lid and simmer, stirring occasionally at least 45 minutes or longer or until potatoes are soft.

REMOVE THE BAY LEAVES and serve.


Serve with cooked elbow macaroni and/or in bread bowls! Yummy!