Barley Beef Soup

Last winter I tried a barley beef soup for lunch (the restaurant was all out of chicken noodle) and it surprisingly wasn't too bad!  I'm not one for "new" things (aka anything that's not super basic, like chicken or noodles), so it is pretty far outside my comfort zone to try barley.  So this winter as I'm trying to come up with new recipes to aid in our healthy eating quest, I decided to get some barley and attempt to recreate the soup.

The first challenge was finding barley.  Oh, it is not as easy as you'd think.  Finally I found it in the natural food section of the grocery store, and in the process found couscous too!  Oh just you wait until I post my recipe for that.  The rest of the ingredients were simple, some even left over from my massive farmer's market run.  It didn't take too long to pull it together, and let me tell you, there's nothing better than coming home to a hot, tasty dinner that you didn't have to spend an hour cooking after work!

Ingredients:
4oz beef broth (one box of Swanson's works)
stew beef, cut into small chunks
1C pearl onions, chopped
1C celery, chopped
1C carrots, dimed
1/4C pearl barley
1/2 tsp Penzy's chicken/beef rub

Cut vegetables and add to meat, broth, and barley in a crock pot.  Stir in the seasoning and mix all ingredients well. 

Cook on low for 7+ hours, or on high for 4-5 hours.  A friend mentioned that barley can get sticky if cooked for too long, but ours was in the crock pot for almost 9 hours and it was just fine. 

The left-overs came to lunch with me the next day and let me tell you, it tastes just as good the 2nd day!  This recipe is definitely a keeper.  We paired it with the homemade "cracker" flat bread recipe and yum, that is my new favorite thing.  I will be making that with as many dinners as I possibly can this winter!