Vegetable Soup

This is a spicy soup, wonderful with hot buttered toast on a winter evening.

Ingredients:

• About half a pound of stew meat
• Half a pound of chorizo
• One onion
• One carrot
• Two or three stalks of celery
• a potato
• a cup of peas
• a 12 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
• curry 
• salt
• olive oil

(1) Dice the onion and cook it in some olive oil on medium heat. Add the chorizo and the stew meat. If the stew meat is in big hunks, cut it up a little -- I like small pieces, which cook faster and absorb the spicy better.

(2) Cut up the carrots and celery, kind of small, and stir them into the meat and onions. Stir it a couple of times. Keep it on medium heat or lower -- you don't want the meat to burn.

(3) Add about a tablespoon of curry powder, less if you don't like spicy. Stir to wake up the spice.

(4) Cut up the potato and stir that in. The spice should be wonderfully aromatic.

(5) Add the crushed tomatoes and a little beef broth if you have some, just to cover the meat and veggies. If you don't have broth water works too.

(6) Cook for about 20 minutes. If your peas are frozen, cook them for about two minutes in the microwave, then add them to the soup. Stir and taste. Add salt if necessary. But your broth and the chorizo are probably salty, so you may not need salt.

(7) Cook for about five more minutes, to blend the flavors. 

(8) Eat up! If there are leftovers, it stores well and is even better reheated.