Yesterday I made my first pot of Mushroom Barley Soup for the season. Oh, so good! I had three big bowls for dinner. This one is easy, folks, even if you’re not into cooking. How hard can it be to throw things serially into a pot with water? Well, you do have to cut things a little, but if I can do it, “the worst person in the world” with a knife, as Keith Olbermann would say, so can you.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Spanish onion, petite diced
- 3-4 carrots, sliced on the bias
- 3-4 stalks celery, sliced
- 8 medium to large plum tomatoes, petite diced
- 1 lb. pearl barley
- 2 lb. baby belle mushrooms, quartered
- 2-3 cups chopped greens (kale/spinach/chard, any or all)
- 3 quarts water
- 1TB + 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. hot paprika
Instructions
- Add extra virgin olive oil to the pot, then the diced onion. Saute for a moment, then add sliced carrots and celery, continuing to saute.
- Add the barley, then 3 quarts of water. Bring to boil, turn heat to simmer, and cook until barley is done.
- Add petite diced tomatoes and seasonings. I ended up using about 4-5 tsp. salt for this quantity, but start with 1 TB, and add to taste.
- When soup has cooked together for awhile and flavors blend, add the mushrooms. Cook for another 10 minutes.
- Add chopped greens in the last five minutes of cooking time. Mix in, and as soon as the soup returns to the simmer, remove from heat.
Eat and enjoy!
For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me onFaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter,@vegwithleslie.