The Great Soup Debate

The new obsession within the family is my grandmother's oxtail soup. The woman never wrote down a recipe in her life, not that it would have done any good because her house burnt down shortly after she died. All we have to go on is the memory of the taste. This has become an increasingly large debate between my sister, and myself. We seem to have different memories of the soup. Although, I think she is thinking of a different soup all together or she is crazy, which is also extremely possible. My mother can't tell us either, "Sorry girls, I never ate your grandmother's soup." "I didn't like it." Fat lotta help she is.

So it's up to me. I went to the grocery store and got an oxtail. I have NEVER seen them in the store before, but when I asked, they were right there, out in plain sight. I know that there were frozen mixed vegetables in it. I went to the frozen food section to get those. They have more varieties of mixed vegetables than I can wave a stick at. You can get Tuscany style, Southwest style, California style, Pepper style etc. I spent 10 minutes looking for plain mixed vegetables (without the Lima beans, yuck!) got those. There is barley in it, got that. And beef broth. I am all set. The only thing is that I can't figure out how she made it red. She hated canned tomatoes, so those aren't in there. (She also hated onions, but I am going to forget that and put them in) The only thing I can figure is that she put a little tomato paste in there. Erin (the sis) insists that it was not red. (Again, crazy!!) We are going to have a cook off. This might be a little difficult because Erin live in Florida, but we'll figure something out. I have to prove her wrong, it's my life's work.

Wish me luck!