Worthwhile Challenge- #2

This morning we woke up to a gorgeous blanket of snow. It was a wonderful day! (Unfortunately, it was not a snow day for Brooke, but Hannah and I had a good day!). The weather put me in the mood for SOUP!

A few years ago, I went on a girls' weekend to Kansas City with two of my best girls, Debbi and Sarah. We had a great time shopping, then got all dolled up for a nice dinner and some fun at the casino. We ate at a yummy restaurant at the Argosy Casino, and I got Kansas City Steak Soup for my starter. I've wanted to try to make it ever since but have never stumbled across a recipe that seemed like it would be close.

Today, I thought I'd try again. I found a base recipe on allrecipes.com (one of my go-to sites) and tweaked it from there. Here's the lo-down on my version of Kansas City Steak Soup:

Many of the ingredients.... though after I took this picture and continued on, I changed a few things...again. lol.

I think you could use many different cuts of beef in this...steak, roast, stew meat...maybe even hamburger. I had a 1-lb. package of kabob meat in the freezer from my local meat market, Satchel Creek Steaks. I decided it would work. I drizzled a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and got it hot, then tossed in the meat and about a 1/2 cup of diced onion. (I used a red onion because that's what I had on hand!).

While the meat was browning away, in a stock pot I melted 1.5 sticks of margarine. Then I whisked in 2/3 cup of flour. Once it's mixed and smooth, let it cook a bit. I learned that at my "Art of Entertaining" class on our last Disney cruise. When making a roux, you have to let the butter/flour mixture cook a bit, don't just dive right into the liquids!


Now it's time to add about 2 cups of water. Whisk till smooth. lumps are not our friend.


Meat check: almost there! I gave this another stir and let it go about 2 more minutes from this point:

Once the roux mixture had thickened up to a good gravy consistency, I added in 2 more cups of water, 6 beef bouillon cubes (I think I would have done maybe 2 more if I had any more!), a can of beef consomme, a can of diced tomatoes, and 1/2 a sack of frozen peas/carrots. I decided (after the ingredient pic was taken) to use those instead of fresh carrots, and it worked out great! You could use any frozen veggie mixture you want, but this is what I had on hand.

Also, dump the contents of the meat skillet right in here too. If it's too greasy, drain most of it off, but what I was using was a pretty lean cut.

Season with salt and pepper, put the lid on...

Turn the pot on low so it can simmer for a few hours, stirring occasionally.

Go outside and play in the snow:

My little pink marshmallow making snow angels, waiting for Brooke and Daddy to get home.

Brooke getting ready to eat some snow. It was not yellow.

After about an hour of playtime, we came back inside to thaw and dry out. The soup was almost ready, but after a taste test I did add about 2 tsp of garlic powder and about 4 dashes of Worshestire sauce.

I popped a can of Grands Biscuits in the oven (I don't think there is much that beats a Grands Biscuit in the biscuit category of life). Checked to see if my variation of Strawberry pretzel salad had set up (it had)... and got it all ready.

Here's our meal!!

The soup was hearty, rich, and fabulous. Brooke gave it two thumbs up, Matt did too but he didn't want a picture. This is definately a keeper, and a good one to take to a friend/neighbor needing a meal. A lot of the stuff is probably in your pantry!

Enjoy!