Mushroom Barley Soup

I really need to plant more parsley.

This one time, my mom visited and made mushroom barley soup. I'd never had it before (which is weird), and I loved it. And when I tried to recreated it later, with the help of her memory, it just wasn't good.

So I hunted down some recipes that didn't take too many ingredients or too much time, but they were bland. Then I found this one, which calls for Marsala or cream sherry. Which made me think of my favorite mushroom gravy, which has red wine in it, and since I don't have Marsala or cream sherry, I decided red wine would do.

It's delicious. It tastes kind of like the soup equivalent of mushroom gravy, especially when I have parsley to add.

My modifications from the original recipe, aside from subbing red wine: I increase the amount of barley from the original recipe, because that's my favorite part. To compensate, I increase the amount of stock and also the amount of wine. I use beef stock instead of chicken stock upon my mother's recommendation, and it gives it much more richness. Also, I food-process the vegetables (in pulse mode) to chop them REALLY REALLY finely, because I don't like mushy vegetable pieces in my soup. If I didn't do that, I would have immersion blended the soup before adding the barley. And despite the lack of parsley in the above photograph, I do usually add parsley, and it's a really good addition to the flavors as well as the beauty of the soup.

The Recipe:

1 tsp butter

2 tsp olive oil

2+ cloves garlic, minced

1 carrot, minced

1 stalk celery, minced

1 small onion, minced

8 oz mushrooms, minced

1 1/2 tsp thyme

salt and pepper, to taste

1 c red wine

4 c beef broth

1 c barley

1/2 c parsley, chopped

• Saute minced vegetables with salt, pepper, and thyme in butter and olive oil over medium-high heat until their liquid has evaporated.
• Add red wine, stir, and cook 1-2 minutes.
• Add remaining ingredients and simmer about 20 minutes, until barley is cooked. Add water if needed to create desired soupiness.
• Remove from heat and stir in parsley.

The Verdict:

Overall grade: B+

Overall reason: Healthy and tasty

Time to prepare: 40 minutes

Husband quote: "Smells like mushrooms." (crinkling nose)