More comfort food.

My grandparents lived on the island, in Victoria when I was growing up. When my family would come to visit, we'd usually take an evening ferry, and get in between 7 and 9. When we arrived at my grandparents, my grandmother would always have what we referred to as "Hamburger soup" cooking on the stove. I think we looked forward to it almost as much as the ferry ride and visit with grandma and grandpa! I got the recipe from my mom over a year ago, and hadn't gotten around to making it until now. I finally made "Hamburger soup" yesterday and it is still as yummy and comforting as it always was. And, relatively healthy if you use extra lean ground beef, and very very inexpensive to make. I think the origional recipe is from a company's coming book. Here it is:

Hamburger Soup

Ingredients:

• 6 cups cold water
• 6 beef cubes
• 1 large tin (28 oz) tomatoes
• 1 tin condensed tomato soup
• 2 cups grated carrots
• 2 cups grated potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 T parsley flakes
• salt (scant)
• Pepper
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 1/2 pounds extra lean ground beef
• 6 cups water

Directions:

Heat first amount of water and cubes. Stir until dissolved. Add remaining ingredients except beef. Bring to a boil. Cover an dsimmer slowly about 1 1/2 hours. Add remaining water to soup about halfway through cooking. Scramble fry ground beef, add to soup, and simmer for 1/2 hour more. (One of my grandma's recipes had sugar, one didn't - I didn't use it this time).