Italian Style Beef and Vegetable Soup

This soup was a request from my mom, but I can't just leave things alone. She loves beef and vegetable soup, I decided to change the vegetable line up and add cannelinni beans instead of potatoes so I could cut down on the amount of beef. Let me say this, this is as a very tomatoey (it's a word, shut up) beef and vegetable soup. It's as much tomato as beef, because my mom and I like it that way! I always remember when we had busy nights and would have soup for dinner, everyone had their preferences. My brother was picky and pretty much wanted tomato with cheese, if he had any. My dad always had one of those big "chunky" soups, you know those ridiculous ones that shouldn't be a soup flavor? Like Big Beefy Super Steaky Goodness with Potatoes? Those ones. My mom pretty much always had beef and vegetable, and I liked the smell of hers the best. This is just a little bit of a twist, and its so convenient to go in the slow cooker. This broth is great with some crusty bread! I'm also doing a post on my Hasselback Garlic Bread...its fantastic...just sayin'

Beef and Vegetable Soup

Let me just say, this is easily the best picture I found in terms of how similar my actual recipe turned out. The only difference is there is baby carrots, and mine was a whole carrot that was cut up. This picture was a win in my book

Italian Beef and Vegetable soup:

1/2 lb fatty steak (cheap is good here, I used chuck eye round)

1 can undrained fire roasted or stewed tomatoes

1 can drained cannellini or white beans
Half a can drained cut green beans

One carrot, peeled and cut into half moons

½ cup frozen peas

¼ to ½ cup frozen spinach or greens of any kind

3 beef bullion cubes and 1 ½ cups water, or 1 and ½ cups beef broth

½ small white or yellow onion, chopped

2 garlic gloves, diced fine

½ tbsp. Italian seasoning

½ tsp black pepper

Let me say about this steak business, you could use stew meat, but they were big packs, and they were expensive! You can totally slow cook smaller cuts that have decent marbling, and shred it. Its a personal choice, you can use stew meat, I didn't feel like paying extra. Your first step is to liberally salt and pepper your steak, and sear it on high just until it browns on both sides. It's pretty easy peasy from here on out. Add all the rest of your ingredients (except your salt) into your slow cooker. I used 3 bullion cubes and half the amount of water to start with because I wasn't going to get a lot of beef flavor from my smaller cut of steak, and its beef soup after all! You can always add more water later, but you can't take it out if you put too much in! That's the same reason we reserve the salt to the end. Your veggies could soak up a lot or a little, and your broth is salty, so just hold off until close to the end. I cooked on high for one hour, then on low for three. This all depends on how cooked you like your veggies, as long as your beef is shredable (also a word...dont judge me), you're good to go! This is so freakin good with crusty bread