Winter Warmers: Crock of Savory Vegetable Stew

The AAR staff will be doing another series of recipes for this blog, this time concentrating on dishes that help warm up the cold days of winter. Hopefully these recipes will work for you as well as they have worked for us. For my recipe, I’ve chosen a soup that has been a familiar winter meal for over a decade. I love soups and stews anytime of year but winter is when I really look forward to baking biscuits and putting bowls full of piping hot goodness on the table. This particular stew is one I first ate at a friend’s home in Minnesota. My husband and I so enjoyed the dish I asked for the recipe. She told me it came from a Land of Lakes cookbook titled Treasury of Country Recipes. That was eighteen years ago and I still have the book and still make this soup at least once a year (typically quite a bit more than that.)

Crock of Savory Vegetable Stew

1/4 cup Land O Lakes® Butter
4 medium (2 cups) carrots, sliced
2 ribs (1 cup) celery, sliced
1 large (1 cup) onion, chopped
4 cups shredded coleslaw mix
1 cup apple juice
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 (15-ounce) can condensed tomato sauce
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can tomato soup
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (16-ounce) package cooked kielbasa, sliced 1/2 inch

Melt butter in 4-quart saucepan until sizzling; add carrots, celery and onions. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 5-7 minutes or until vegetables are crisply tender.

Add all remaining ingredients except kielbasa. Reduce heat to low. Cover; cook, stirring occasionally, 12-15 minutes or until heated through.

Stir in kielbasa. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, 10-15 minutes or until heated through. Remove bay leaf.

– Maggie AAR