Peter Luger Vegetable Soup

Okay, it's really just regular vegetable soup, but I used some bones to add flavor, and those bones happened to be from Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn.

The Peter Luger experience is a quintessential New York one, but I have to say it was not worth the hype.  The beefiness of the steak was amazing, but it was overly charred, and that kind of ruined things.  The creamed spinach was fantastic though...

We took home the leftovers, including these two t-bones:

They'll definitely give this soup some umph.

The other players:

Veggies.  Onion, potato, celery, carrot, and cabbage.  (Of course, you can use any combination of veggies you like.)

Sautée the onion, carrot and celery.

I threw in some whole garlic cloves as well.

Add the potatoes and cabbage:

Those fabulous bones.  If  you don't have leftover steak bones, you could use bones you buy at the butcher counter- just brown them in a hot oven to give them extra flavor.

A splash of vino:

Water to cover:

A can of diced tomatoes:

Here's a nice tip:

Put your herbs and spices in a bit of cheese cloth so they're easier to remove later.  I used peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme and parsley.

Tie it up like a little package:

And nestle it into the simmering soup.

Let your soup simmer on low as long as you can.  If any scum floats up from those bones, skim it off.

I like to add noodles to my soup.

I cooked them seperately so they wouldn't get too soft.

Place your egg noodles in the bowl:

And top with the soup.

Or, of course, if you're too lazy to cook noodles, there's always sourdough bread.

Make some soup.  It'll keep that cold snap at bay.

Playing,
Meredith