That makes perfect sense to me...but my grandmother never used a real recipe. I learned it from her & I don't use one either. I can tell you what I do though - because you really don't need one.
When I make it, I use an enormous pot that's about the size of an 8qt canner...i.e. holds 8 quart jars completely covered with water - so I mean
enormous!!
Cover a soup bone with water & bring to a boil. Reduce heat & simmer for a couple hours. Skim the foam off, remove the bone to cool & pull off any meat. (Alternately just thinly slice stewing beef and cover with water.)
Add a couple beef bouillon cubes to intensify the stock. The only fresh veggies I use are carrots usually. If I'm ambitious they get sliced. Otherwise I just put them in my chopper/food processor. If I have it on hand I'll add chopped celery too.
Then I start adding the frozen veggies...I use the 1 lb bags, but if your pot doesn't hold that much you could just use the 10 oz boxes. I always add cut green beans, peas, corn, and mixed veggies. The kids & DH didn't like lima beans, but I used to put those in also. Although I like red beets, I didn't like the way they bleached out in the soup. (They almost get white looking
so I stopped adding them) My grandmother always added cabbage, but again the kids & DH wouldn't eat it that way
so that gets skipped now.
Bring it to a boil again, reduce the heat & simmer an hour. Because I always freeze a bunch of it I don't add cubed potatoes to mine...they don't freeze real well. Instead I add barley after it simmers an hour... I just heave some in, but I'd say no more than a cup to that huge pot I use.
Once the barley is soft I pour in V-8 juice. You'd be surprised at the difference between that & tomato juice. A 48 oz can is enough for my big pot. It doesn't take much really to give it that nice tomato-ey broth.
Believe it or not, that's it! I haven't made any yet this winter, but you've put me in the mood for it now!
Oh - and my sister adds weird stuff LOL like Brussel sprouts (yuck!) to hers and chopped tomatoes. I've never been fond of cooked chunks of tomato myself.
She also adds some sugar to hers - before the V-8. I've never done that and I don't remember my grandmother doing it either. So go by your own sense of taste. The same thing goes for salt. The bouillon adds plenty for us, since we use very little here anymore. I remember Gram adding a couple teaspoons to hers though when I was small.