It’s raining
today, so soup sounded good. Beef &
Barley is one of my favorites. It was
one of my Dad’s too. Always comforting
and delicious. I adapted this recipe
from several I found on the internet. It
was fairly quick to make and very tasty!
Ingredients:
1 white
onion, chopped
8 ounces
cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 carrots,
cut into bite sized pieces
1 parsnip,
cut into bite sized pieces
3 stalks of
celery, cut into bite sized pieces
4 cloves
garlic, minced
12 – 16
ounces stew meat, cut into bite sized pieces
1 cup pearl
barley
6 cups beef
broth
3 sprigs
fresh thyme
Olive Oil
Salt &
Pepper to taste
Directions:
Put the
barley into a saucepan. Add
approximately 6 cups of water and 3 beef bouillon cubes. Bring to a boil,
reduce heat and cover. Simmer until the
barley is cooked through. Drain.
Drizzle
olive oil into a hot skillet and heat.
Add the onions and mushrooms. Sauté
until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms begin to brown. Remove from heat and place into a soup pot.
Return the
skillet to the burner. Drizzle a little
bit more olive oil and add the carrots, parsnips, celery and garlic. Saute until the carrots and parsnips begin to
brown; approximately 7 minutes. Add the
carrot mixture to the onion/mushroom mixture in the soup pot.
Return the
skillet to the burner. Drizzle more
olive oil. Add the stew meat and cook
until browned. Should do this in batches
so that you don’t overcrowd the skillet.
If the skillet is too crowded, the meat will not brown. Place the cooked meat into the soup pot.
Put about 1
cup of the beef broth in the skillet to deglaze the pan and scrape up the
browned bits. Add that liquid to the
soup pot along with the rest of the beef broth. Place the sprigs of thyme into the soup.
Cook the
soup for about 1 hour. Add the cooked drained
barley and continue cooking for an additional 15 – 20 minutes. Remove the sprigs of thyme. The leaves will have fallen off and incorporated into the soup. Serve and Enjoy!
Salt and
Pepper the individual servings to taste.
