Foooooooooooood

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My officemates have helped me realize that I'm not regressing to bachelorette life--I'm actually aging!  I've gotten more creative and adventurous with my cooking (read: I'm actually cooking things that aren't ground meat), and I cross-stitch when I need a break.  My birth certificate may say 23 years old, but my habits say otherwise!

Anyway, I thought I'd do a food post today concerning the soup I made last week.  It's beef barley soup, and the recipe came from SkinnyTaste.com, a website full of delicious, healthy recipes.  Hooray!  I'll outline them for you here.

This is the picture from skinnytaste.com...my pictures were much less impressive.

Ingredients
  • 1 tsp oil
  • 1.5 lbs lean beef round stew meat (I made tiny meatballs out of ground 92% beef)
  • 1 c chopped carrots
  • 1 c chopped onions
  • 1/2 c chopped celery
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped (I used minced)
  • 6 c water (may substitute beef broth for any or all of the water)
  • 1-2 tsp kosher salt (don't use as much if you use beef broth)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2/3 c dry barley
  • ground black pepper
Directions
  1. Heat a large pot on medium heat.  Brown beef with oil and a little salt.  Note: I have never bought stew meat so I went all Italian Wedding style and made some little meatballs. They were delicious!
  2. Add carrots, onion, celery, and garlic to the pot and stir.  
  3. Add water (or broth), salt (optional), and bay leaves and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 1.5-2 hours.  Meat should be soft.     
  4. Add barley, and salt/pepper if you deem it necessary.  Simmer 30-35 more minutes, remove bay leaves, and serve.  Note: Kale was on sale at Kroger so I thought I'd buy some and add it to the soup for some extra nutrition.  I highly advise doing this because it is delicious.  Just make sure you chop it up very well, and add it 5-10 minutes before serving.
  5. This recipe makes about five 1.5-cup servings, and each serving is low in fat and carbs, and high in protein and fiber!
There you have it--the tasty soup recipe!  Check out SkinnyTaste, there are some fantastic recipes on there.  Since you stuck with this blog post about food, here is a picture of a pi pie from a friend's thesis defense!  Ha, it's pi on a pie!!


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