Beef Veggie Soup by Gabby

Today it is constantly raining outside and it just felt like a soup kind of day, So, I made my favorite beef vegatable soup, made with meaty shank bones. In case you've never used shank meat for soup or stew, it produces absolutely delicious beefy flavor. These are the same shank bones I roast for making beef stock after cutting the meat off. So here is an approximate recipe. You can add or subtract whatever you want.

Beef Veggie Soup

1 -1 1/2 pounds of beef shank bones with meat
1 quart of beef stock or 2 - 14.5 ounce cans of beef broth.
1 tablespoon soy sauce (optional, but really does enhance the flavor)
1 medium yellow onion chopped about medium
1 stalk of celery and leaves, chopped finely
1 clove of finely minced garlic
hearty sprinkle of onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste (Add after simmoring and before the veggies are added)

The above ingredients are the base of the soup no matter what veggies you use. All of the ingredients are placed in a pot  and cooked at a brisk simmer until the shank meat can be cut into 3/4 inch chunks and placed back in the stock. Depending on the meat, this can take up to two hours, and you may feel like adding more liquid as the level cooks down. Taste it though as the cooking concentrates the beef flavor, and you may feel like a little water is called for. The marrow from the bone is delicious and full of nutrients, but if it doesn't appeal to you, your dog will certainly like it!

Once you have removed the meat from the bones and place that back in the stock, chop and add veggies according to what you like.  Today, I put a handful of little frozen green peas in at the last, about half of a large carrot chopped,  a small tomato chopped and chopped okra. Simmer again until the veggies are just done. I just used what was on hand without going to the store. Each time I make it the veggies are different.

If you are not on Phase one of Atkins and want a little pasta for your soup, cook about half a cup of  Dreamfields rotini or macaroni separately in water and  toss in the soup at the last (Do not cook the pasta in the soup liquid as that will destroy it's low carb value.) This makes at least four hearty bowls of soup. You can use the carb counter on the Atkins site to figure out the carb count of your soup.Total carb count of the base of the soup is about 15 or 16 net carbs. So one bowl of the soup would be about 4 carbs. Add  the carb count of the veggies you use and divide by four to get the carb count of one serving. Make this on a day off when you have time to let the base simmer properly and develop flavor!