The choice of ingredients are up to you; use what is fresh and at the peak of season.
Staging the addition of the vegetables in intervals ensures they will cook evenly and maintain peak freshness. Rather than small, diced vegetables that begin to disintegrate in the soup, roughly chop your vegetables into larger chunks. Feel free to make ahead your own vegetable stock, but the store-bought packaged variety does deliver good results when combined with the browned beef and vegetables. I don’t recommend canned vegetables in this recipe, but if you do, be sure to pour off the canning liquid before adding to the broth. You can freeze any leftover soup in a sealed storage container for up to 3 months; be sure to leave enough headroom for the soup to expand when frozen.