Thursday, October 10, 2013

Beef Barley Lentil Soup

     As I've mentioned before, The Wife loves her soup. It doesn't really matter what time of year or what the weather. She will almost never say no to a bowl of soup. I'm pretty sure it's due to some previous psychological trauma, but there's not much to be done for it now but give her soup. I'd hate to be responsible for causing a psychotic break. Anyway, she found this recipe in one of our cookbooks and made it herself. If was a good, hearty soup with a nice savory flavor. Next time I would use diced tomatoes instead of stewed. I'm not a big fan of enormous wads of tomato floating in my soup. As always, changes and notes are in blue.
Beef Barley Lentil Soup
via Fix It and Forget It Lightly
Ingredients

  • 1 lb extra-lean ground beef (we openly mock this ingredient and use 73/27 ground beef. Bring on the grease!)
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 2 cups potatoes, cubed
  • 1 cup celery, chopped
  • 1 cup carrots, diced
  • 1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
  • 1/2 cup medium-sized pearl barley
    Pearl barley, not Bailey. Totally different. Make sure you add the right one.
  • 8 cups water
  • 2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules (that's a lot of sodium. We used a single bouillon cube)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (omitted. There's already enough sodium from the bouillon and canned tomatoes)
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning (we ended up using a full teaspoon. The Wife likes lemon pepper)
  • 2-14 ounce cans stewed tomatoes, undrained
Directions
  1. Brown ground beef with onions in a nonstick skillet, drain. 
  2. Combine all ingredients except tomatoes in slow cooker.
  3. Cook on LOW for 6 hours, or until lentils and barley are tender.
  4. Add tomatoes. Cook on LOW for 1-2 more hours.
Good times!

4 comments:

  1. "we openly mock this ingredient" HAHAHA!!! I love the sense of humor in this post! Thanks for linking up to Let's Get Real!

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  2. I'm with your wife. I love soup! This one looks like a great one. Thanks for cutting back the salt. I'm salty enough already. Your posts always make me smile.

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