Welcome to my site!

Welcome to my site!
I'm Cindy, and I love to cook! And, I love to eat... hence the size of my rear end! I come from a long line of cooks. My great great Grandmother was a cook in the original Harvey Houses. My grandmother Julia was an awesome cook, and my mom was incredible. I owe my skills to these great women. Especially my Mom who said this to me about making gravy... "Cindy Lynn, wallpaper paste is wallpaper paste & gravy is gravy. Never the two shall meet!" Shall we say my first experience at making gravy left a little bit to be desired! Thank the high heavens my cooking skills have improved since then! Enjoy!

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Mushroom, Beef & Barley Soup

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.

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