Sunday, August 10, 2008

Vegetable Barley Soup

Lots of veggies in the fridge? Try making a vegetable soup! That's what I did tonight. You can pretty much put vegetables you have around in a soup like this, but I like to make sure I have a few basics, otherwise I would just not make it. Mirepoix. I love mirepoix. Three ingredients go into mirepoix: onions, carrots and celery. I like to have these three ingredients on hand in my home at all times. When there are no other vegetables in the house, at least I can find those.

My soup tonight had onions, carrots, celery, fennel bulb, zucchini, brocoli stems, garlic, and russet potatoes. I sauted all but the potatoes together with olive oil, added a little white wine, and put everything into a crock pot. I added the potatoes, about 1/2 cup of pearl barley (rinsed), covered everything with water, seasoned with salt & pepper, turned the crock pot to high, covered, and walked away. A few hours later, I finished it with sherry vinegar, a little extra virgin olive oil, adjusted the seasoning, and VOILA! Dinner is served. My cheatin' heart made asiago cheese bread with (YIKES!) garlic powder!!!! At least I used nice sea salt.

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