This is a very versatile recipe and can easily be made vegetarian by skipping the meat and using a vegetable stock instead of a meat-based stock. It does make a lot, but it reheats beautifully and while you can easily halve the recipe, I find that it's much nicer made in a large pot with leftovers for lunch the next day. Note that this is a complete meal in itself and tends to be very thick and chunky. This recipe will easily feed four to six people of average appetite, but for more than four, be sure to serve bread and maybe a salad to round it all out and make sure everyone gets adequately fed (we tend to be big eaters around here).

Ingredients:

1 medium onion
1 medium carrot
2 stalks of celery
1 medium leek
2 medium tomatoes
1 litre (quart) of stock (vegetable, or try chicken)
500 grams (1 lb.) cubed chicken, beef, pork or lamb (most meats work, just make sure they're boneless)
2 Tbsp. chopped dried parsley
2-3 cloves roasted garlic, minced or put through a press (see previous recipe for directions)
1/2 tsp. dried powdered sage
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
2 tsp. seasoned salt (also known as 'season all')
1-2 Tbsp. cooking oil
Pepper to taste
1 cup white rice

Chop onions, set aside. Roughly chop tomatoes and set aside in a medium sized mixing bowl. Chop remaining vegetables into pieces that are slightly smaller than bite-sized, and put them in the bowl with the tomatoes.

In a large pot, place oil and chopped onions. Heat to medium high, stirring constantly. Cook onions until they're almost transluscent and then add the meat. Stirring constantly, cook meat until browned. Add the stock and the chopped vegetables. Liquid should cover all ingredients with a little room to spare; if it doesn't look like there's enough liquid, add a little water until all ingredients are well-covered (do note that some of the vegetables will float, so don't be fooled; you need no more than six cups of liquid total). Add spices, including garlic, stir well. Turn heat up to high and bring to a boil, allowing soup to boil for about a minute or two before covering and turning down the heat to a simmer. Simmer fifteen minutes. Stir soup well and add rice. Replace lid and simmer an additional twenty minutes, checking periodically to ensure there is enough liquid (add more if it gets a bit low, but this depends on how thick you like your soup). Taste rice to make sure it's tender, and if so, serve soup in generous portions with hot buttered rolls or crusty bread.

A note for vegetarians: In place of meat, you might consider adding half a cup of washed green lentils in with the vegetables to round out the proteins. Lentils are a wonderful addition to this dish.

Vegetable variations: Use whatever vegetables you like. I've made this soup with chopped zuccini, chick peas (canned), green beans, corn, yellow squash, basically whatever looks good in the vegetable department and is good cooked. The leeks, onions, and tomatoes are the base of the savory flavor of the soup, but everything else is pretty much flexible. Experiment!

Pasta/rice variation: If you like, you can substitute pasta for the rice. Use about twice as much pasta as you would rice. I've found that smaller pastas such as little spirals or macaroni work best. Note that if you use pasta instead of rice you should cook the vegetable mixture for twenty mintues and then add the pasta and cook for an additional ten or until the pasta is done. If you do use pasta instead of rice, the soup won't be nearly as thick as it would with rice, which gives off a lot of starch to thicken it. You can also use brown rice if you like, but you should put it in with the vegetables at the start as it takes about twice as long (or longer) to cook as white rice, and it's not as starchy so the soup won't be as thick.

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