I've made this recipe twice now and the results were rather bland. The first time I made it I followed the recipe except for using beef broth instead of water. The comments were that it wasn't flavorful enough. The second time I changed things a bit: added minced garlic, Worcestershire sauce, chopped onions and dried minced onions when I cooked the meat. Omitted the onion soup mix (didn't have any). Added frozen sweet peas and green beans and some frozen hash brown potatoes. I also used an extra two cans of broth (no water). Doubled the amount of pepper. Used red wine instead of white and used 3/4 cup. Increased the cornstarch to 4 Tablespoons. The results were disappointing; just didn't have enough flavor. Sorry to say I won't be making this soup again.