Mushroom Barley Soup

In the deep cold of winter, there is nothing quite like a warming bowl of soup.   This recent NY cold spell inspired me to make a wonderful earthy soup featuring pantry staples barley and dried shitake mushrooms. Together with fresh mushrooms and vegetables, this is a hearty and nutritious soup and is not difficult to make. The recipe below makes about 8 portions, and it heats up nicely making it perfect for bringing to work.   I don’t know where you work, but a cup of soup near my job is AT LEAST $5! This one? $1.25 per serving—and it tastes like a million bucks!

Mushroom Barley Soup

• 2 onions ($.40)
• 5 cloves garlic ($.05)
• 4 carrots ($.25)
• 4 stalks celery ($.50)
• 1 cup dried sliced shitake mushroom caps ($1) reconstituted in hot water to cover
• 1/2lb cremini mushrooms ($1.60)
• 5oz sliced shitake mushroom caps ($5)
• 1 cup barley ($.75)
• Salt, pepper, herbes de provence ($.20)
• Olive oil ($.25)

Like most soups, the most labor intensive part of making this soup is the chopping.  There’s no need to spend extra time making sure all the vegetables are in exact equal pieces–especially with a rustic soup like this one, it’s OK to have pieces that aren’t perfectly square.

First, reconstitute the dried mushrooms in hot water and put up a kettle of about 5 cups of water to boil. While the mushrooms soak, saute the onions and garlic over medium heat in olive oil until they take on some color. Then, add the chopped carrots and celery.   A few minutes later, add the mushrooms–both fresh and reconstituted. Each time a new ingredient is added to the pot, be sure to season with salt and pepper.  This brings out the flavor of each ingredient.

Keep the soaking liquid from the mushrooms–it will be added later. Once the veggies take on some color, add the barley and saute for a minute or so. Then, add a tablespoon of herbes de provence (parsley or thyme would be be a good substitute), the soaking liquid and the boiling water. Barley really eats up water, so be sure to add at least enough water to cover by a few inches.

Turn the heat down, cover and cook for 30 minutes.  If the barley ends up really sucking up a lot of the water, you can always add more, you can also add more water when you re-heat it.

This is such a nicely balanced soup, each bite packs a wallop of earthy, supplementing nutrition.  Enjoy!

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