Caldo De Res

I recently went to the second weekend of the ACL music festival. It was fun and exciting and exhausting. I discovered a new favorite band (Twenty-One Pilots) and greatly enjoyed an old favorite (Foo Fighters, They are amazing!) I also somehow managed to come out of it with a terrible cold. 

My week was horrible - I was exhausted, grumpy, and probably more than a little bit contagious. I was greatly looking forward to the weekend so I could lay on my couch all day and catch up on my Netflix. 

What I really wanted though was to have my mom visit and spoil me (yes, I'm an adult... don't judge!) . Unfortunately, she lives about 5 hours away from me. Although she very graciously offered to ride her bike up to make me soup (ha ha, mom), I realized that I had to take matters into my own hands. 

I needed to eat something healthy so I decided to try my hand at making caldo de res -  a beef bone broth / vegetable soup. Delicious and nutritious!

 I've struggled with cooking in the past so I was a little nervous about it. I didn't want another disater like this. However, with my mom on the line (Have I mentioned I'm an only child? That explains everything, I think) I attempted this incredibly easy recipe and actually managed to make something absolutely delicious.

Here's the recipe. 

Ingredients:

• 10 cups water (or just fill a big pot halfway. Leave some room for the meat and veggies)
• 1 pound bone-in beef chuck or beef shank
• 1 pound boneless beef chuck
• 1/4 white onion
• 2 carrots, peeled and roughly cut. (I bought a bag of the pre-cut / peeled ones since I was being lazy)
• 1 zucchini, washed and cut into big chunks
• 1 big potato, washed and cut into big chunks
• 1 tomato
• corn on the cob, halved (I didn't find any at my grocery store so I bought a can.)
• cilantro
• salt and pepper to taste
• chicken bouillon 
• powdered ginger (optional)

The original recipe also includes the following but they're not my favorite so I left them out:

• 1 celery stick
• 1 chayote squash

I love Knorr chicken bouillon. It's probably the only non-healthy item on this list, but it tastes amazing. Since it makes an appearance in most of my mom's recipes, I'm keeping it.

Add water to the pot and the veggies that'll take the longest to cook - onion, carrot, celery, corn (I didn't have corn on the cob or I would have added it here. Since I had only had a can, I left that separate and added it at the end to my bowl).

Wash the meat and generously add salt and pepper.

Add the meat to the pot with a large tablespoon of the bouillon.

I then decided to add some sweet potato because I love it ( it was an afterthought).

Let everything cook for about 30 minutes. When you go check on it, it'll have some foam that looks like this:

Scoop that out.

 Add the potato and zucchini.

Scoop out the onion and blend it with the tomato and a little bit of water.

Use a colander to add the mixture back in to the soup. 

Let everything cook for another 30 minutes or until the meat and veggies are fully cooked. Add a dash of powdered ginger for an extra oomph! 

Garnish with cilantro and corn if you didn't have it on the cob. 

Many people eat this with rice, but I couldn't be bothered so I decided I was doing low-carb. It was still amazing!

Enjoy the warm healthy goodness!

It was just what I needed to feel better. It's amazing what a bone broth and veggies can accomplish. The best part is that it tasted just like my mom made it. I'm so proud!!

I had a ton left over so I froze about half of it in separate portions. I can enjoy it later on this fall.