Semi-Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup

We've had a very mild winter here in the upstate of SC. Honestly I've not even worn my heavy-duty wool coat once this year. I am generally not a winter person. I'm always cold and cold winters just make me colder. I always look forward to hot summer days; however one of the few things that I do enjoy about winter is a good pot of soup on a gray or cold winter day. Since we haven't had many of those, we've not had much soup this winter. I decided that I was going to cook a pot of soup anyway on a not-so-cold day. One of my favorite soups is homemade vegetable beef soup. Throughout my life, my mom would make homemade vegetable soup, but she would use canned and frozen vegetables from my Granny's (or another family members') garden. I would suggest that if you can plan ahead and have the fresh veggies on hand, then go ahead and use them. In this case I had not planned ahead enough and just had mostly canned veggies.

Here's what I used:
1 lb thin sliced steak thawed
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 can green beans
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can potatoes
1 can mixed vegetables
1 carrot
1 cup macaroni
2 cans tomato soup
1/2 tsp Mrs Dash
salt to taste (optional)
Water

*You can substitute one large bag of frozen mixed vegetables for all of the canned veggies listed above or as I said earlier, fresh veggies are even better but will take a longer cook time. You can easily substitute 1 lb of beef tips for the thin sliced steak.

To get started, chop steak into small chunks.

You'll need a large pot. Spray the bottom with PAM or drizzle with a little olive oil and turn the eye on medium-high and put your meat in to brown. Flip it over a couple of times just to get it browned on both sides.

Once the meat is browned, pour 2 cans of diced tomatoes with the juice into the pot.

Peel and slice your carrot. And dice your potatoes too if they aren't already.

Open, drain and pour in your cans of green beans, whole kernel corn, and mixed vegetables. Then throw in your potatoes and carrots.

Since I didn't have too many fresh veggies, I added just a small sprinkle of salt. If I were using fresh veggies I would have used more, but add it if you'd like.

Give the soup a good sprinkle of Mrs. Dash, probably about 1/2 a teaspoon.

Now add about 1/2 cup of water and stir it up. (You want to have enough water to cover most of the veggies so they can cook.) Put the lid on and turn the temp down to about medium-low for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. (It's going to need the heat to cook the fresh carrots. If you didn't add any fresh veggies then you can just simmer for about 10 minutes to let the flavor stir up a bit.)

Now add about 2 handfuls of macaroni noodles, stir and add more water to make sure the veggies and noodles are covered. Continue to cook on med-low for about 15 minutes stirring occasionally.

To finish it off, pour in 2 cans of condensed tomato soup. If you want your soup to be thicker, then you don't have to add any more water. If you want to thin it out a bit, feel free to stir in a little more water until you get your desired consistency. Stir over medium heat until it boils. Be careful not to turn the heat up too high or leave it without stirring. The condensed tomato soup will stick to the bottom of the pot, if you do, so stir until it's bubbling then pull it off of the eye.

And here's the finished product:

Yum, yum! I hope you enjoy!