Hearty Cabbage Soup

This is an absolutely great soup, which is not at all complicated to make. I've tried using ground turkey, but it's just not the same. You can always drain off much of the grease from the ground beef to cut down on fat, cholesterol and calories, and I know ground beef is expensive right now, but I have to admit, the ground beef gives it the best flavor. You can shred your own cabbage, or you can just use the bagged Cole Slaw mix from the produce section of your market. This is my adaptation of a recipe from one of those recipe card collections called, "My Great Recipes." The card is dated 1984, but I got it in about 1987 from someone who was moving and was getting rid of a lot of things. They were going to toss these recipe cards and I looked through them and took about ten or twelve before they hit the trash. Who the "my" is from the title, I have no idea, nor do I know if the company is even still in business.

1 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon oil (vegetable, canola, regular olive oil are all good choices)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 sm to med head of cabbage, or 1 lb bag cole slaw mix
1 med. carrot, sliced or diced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper or to taste
1 bay leaf
2 1/2 cups of beef broth (homemade/canned/carton)
1 to 1 1/2 cup(s) water
2 tbsp soy sauce
fresh or dried parsley (optional)

In a soup pan, brown the ground beef with the oil (you can then drain of any fat), then add the onion and garlic, cook until the onion and garlic are softened. Add the cabbage, carrot, salt, seasoned salt, pepper, bay leaf (don't forget to remove this later), beef broth and water. Simmer until cabbage and carrot are tender. Stir in the soy sauce and parsley and serve. Leftovers taste just a good, or maybe even better.

WORD HISTORY:
Harvest-This word is distantly related to "excerpt" (both verb and noun), a word borrowed by English from Latin. "Harvest" goes back to Indo European "kerp/karp," which had the notion "to gather, to pluck." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "harbistaz" (West Germanic branch) and "harbustaz" (North Germanic branch), which meant "time of harvest, time of gathering in." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "haerfest," meaning 'harvest time," and by extension "autumn" or "fall." This later became "hervest/harvest," with "harvest" becoming the standard. "Harvest" was the English word for "autumn/fall" until both of those forms began to overtake its use in the 1500s. The other Germanic languages have various forms, most still meaning "autumn/fall," unless noted: German "Herbst," Low German "Harvst," West Frisian "hjerst," Dutch "herfst," Danish "høst" (meaning "harvest"), Norwegian "høst," Icelandic "haust," and Swedish "höst."