Thursday, February 4, 2010

A STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE - with recipes

My niece, Elspeth Koor, sent me this delicious soup recipe. Elspeth has been making it for years and isn't sure where she got the recipe. She thinks she cut it out of a magazine and then added her own touches to it. The Jennifer mentioned is Elspeth's daughter.

Enjoy.

Beef and Barley Soup

This thick and hearty soup is Jennifer’s favourite meal. You may find that you have to add more water (or wine) if the barley expands and the soup is too thick.

2 tbsp. Vegetable oil ½ tsp. Crumbled dried sage
1 lb Beef cubed very small 5 cups beef stock
2 tbsp. All purpose flour ½ cup red wine (or more beef stock)
2 onions finely chopped 1 19 oz. can chopped tomatoes
3 cloves garlic minced 2 cups water
8 oz mushrooms chopped or ½ tsp pepper
1 red pepper finely chopped ¼ tsp salt
2 carrots finely chopped 1 cup pearl barley
2 stalks celery finely chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
• In a large Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat. Toss beef with flour; in batches brown all over. Transfer to a plate.
• Increase heat to high; cook onions, garlic, mushrooms or red pepper, carrots, celery, thyme & sage, stirring, for about 5 minutes or til liquid is evaporated.
• Stir stock and wine into pot; cook for 1 minute, stirring and scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of pot. Add beef, tomatoes, water, pepper and salt; bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered for 1 ½ hours or until beef is tender.
• Add barley; cover and simmer for 30 minutes

I substitute red pepper for mushrooms when making for Jennifer as she has a mushroom allergy.

A note: Although my blog is copyright@2010 by Anita Birt, the recipes are for you to copy and keep in your special notebooks. Lots more to come in the days ahead including a very special salad recipe from Jeanelle Mitchell, cookbook author. And there are pickles on the way.

Anita
www.anitabirt.com

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