Stuffed Pepper Soup

Of course this is not a soup with stuffed peppers in it.  It does, however, taste just like stuffed peppers.  So good!  It is much easier to make the rice ahead of time and cool to room temperature.  Take out your soup pot and let's start cooking.

• 1 c cooked rice 
• 3 T olive oil
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 medium green peppers seeded and chopped
• 1 clove of garlic minced
• 1 1/2 lbs. beef short ribs
• 1 T salt
• 6 c water
• 2 T concentrated beef base

Cook 1/2 c uncooked rice according package directions and set aside. 

Place the olive oil, onion and peppers in soup pot and sauté for two minutes over medium heat.  Add garlic and cook for one more minute.  Removed the vegetables, leaving liquid in the pot and put aside.   Place short ribs, salt and water in pot, cover and cook over simmering heat until meat is tender - about 2 hours. Remove any fat that accumulated at the top.  Remove the bones from the ribs and chop the meat into small pieces.  Add meat back into the pot, along with the concentrated beef base. Simmer for ten more minutes, stirring to distribute and dissolve.  Stir in rice and vegetables (with any accumulated juices) into the pot.  Serve hot.

For beef barley soup, replace the peppers with 1 peeled and chopped carrot and 1 chopped celery stalk and replace the rice with cooked barley.