Domestic Goddess
Posted by Erin | Filed under General
Well. Not really. Just for today, I’m pretending that I am.
Making beef barley soup/stew today. Barton found the recipe online somewhere, and I’ve slightly modified it so that we get a nice big crockpot full.
5 small-to-medium potatoes, chunked
a cup of chopped celery
1-2 cups of frozen mixed veggies (peas, carrots, corn, green beans)
2 small-to-medium white onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
a pinch or so each of oregano, basil, and bay leaves (apparently I only had ground up bay leaves in my spice rack – the recipe calls for whole so it can be discarded later)
a bit of ground pepper
(and this is where the light fixture nearly fell on my head – this’ll be in the next post)
4 cans of low-sodium beef broth (14.5 oz cans)
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
~1.5 lbs of beef roast, cut into chunks – aka “beef for stew”
2/3 cup barley
Brown beef chunks in a little oil in a large skillet. Combine all other ingredients in a large (5-6 qt) crockpot, then add beef. Cook on high 4-5 hours. Since I’m using ‘quick’ barley, I’m waiting to add it until about an hour before the cook cycle is done so it doesn’t get mushy.
Right now, its just about 1.5 hours into the cook cycle. We’ll see how it turns out tonight.
(The next day)
Okay then. Notes for next time -
Try cooking the onions/garlic in the skillet with the beef chunks
Skip the tomatoes
Use chopped fresh carrots and cut the potatoes into smaller chunks
Skip the frozen veggies and use some other fresh veggies (fresh peas, peapods, green beans maybe?)
Use less barley (I put in about 1.5 cups instead of 2/3 of a cup which at the time didn’t seem like a lot but ended up overwhelming it somewhat)
MOAR SPICES. The smell was amazing but for some reason did not translate much to taste. Maybe try a packet of “slow cooker roast” seasonings instead.
