Memorial Day and a good soup recipe

Happy Memorial Day! I hope you will all get a chance to visit the graves and/or learn about your ancestors or other loved ones that have passed on. I love to hear stories of my ancestors. Some of them really had a lot of character!

And some of them were just plain interesting, such as my third-great grandfather, Obadiah Anathias Tooley. He had quite a colorful, adventurous life, and was hopping trains at 80 years old to visit his children who were scattered in Washington, Idaho and Minnesota. He died of a heart attack while he was hopping a train in Pocatello, Idaho, where he was buried.

If you have any interesting stories, feel free to share them as a comment.

Today looks like it is going to be a good day to visit graves. It's sunny and pleasant. But yesterday it was still rainy and cold, so I made a soup that I haven't made in a while. It's a colonial dish that I found in a children's book about colonial cooking. My favorite part of it is the smell while it is cooking!

Philadelphia Pepper Pot

1 lb. ground beef or sausage
1 lg. onion
2 celery stalks
2 green peppers
3 lg. potatoes
1 t. parsley
5 c. water
1 t. pepper
1/2 t. cloves

Brown the meat. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook 1 hour.

When it says three large potatoes, it means they need to be pretty large. I usually add another potato or two because the ones I buy are smaller. Last night I also omitted one cup of water so that the soup was more chunky and less brothy. That's a matter of personal taste, but I liked it better.

Brown the meat and onions.

While the meat is browning, cut up the other vegetables.

Here are all the ingredients mixed together and ready to boil.