Mushroom Barley Soup

I hosted my Book Club* here last night and made this soup. It got a lot of compliments and people asking for the recipe. I got it from Mothering magazine but you can not get it from their website unless you subscribe, so here it is:

1/2 cup pearl barley

1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 carrot, peeled & diced

1 celery stalk, diced

3/4 pound mixed mushrooms (crimini, shiitake, white, portobello, whatever)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tb fresh thyme, minced (I used about 1/2 tsp dried)

1 bay leaf

5-6 cups vegetable stock (I used chicken)

Place barley in small saucepan with 1 cup water. Bring to simmer, cover & cook until barley has absorbed all liquid (about 15 minutes for me). Turn off & set aside.

Heat olive oil in soup pot over medium heat. When hot add onion, celery & carrot. Cook, stirring often for about 4-5 minutes or until veggies start to soften around edges. Add mushrooms & continue cooking until mushrooms begin to wilt down & release their juices (4-5 minutes more). Add garlic & stir. Add thyme, bay leaf & 5 cups stock, plus some pepper if desired. Bring to simmer & cook over medium heat about 20 minutes or until veggies are tender & soup is well flavored. Add barley (& the last cup of stock if soup seems too thick). Bring back to simmer & season to taste with salt & pepper.

They recommend making the soup the night before or morning of & letting it sit because the sitting time lets the flavors develop. I just had some of the soup for lunch today and I think it actually tasted even better than last night, it gets thicker and a bit creamier with sitting and being reheated. This recipe serves 2-4 so I doubled it since I made it for 6 people & we had leftovers (but I tend to be generous on my measurements on veggies for soups). Then again even though they really liked the soup no one had seconds because the cheese & bread were so yummy!

I am not much into taking pictures of food, so imagine a soup bowl with pieces of mushrooms, barley, onion, carrot, etc in a light colored broth and you have a good enough picture  :)

* I will post more about my Book Club (including a list of books) over the next few weeks. 

Recipes

Occasionally I will post a recipe here. Maybe because I just tried it & liked it. Maybe because it is a family favorite that has been around a long time. Or maybe because I can not think of anything else to post about!

So here is the first: Oven Roasted Carrots & Parsnips. I got this from RecipeZaar (currently my favorite site for finding recipes). There are many similar recipes that are also good - I also have done one that had you add honey & balsamic vinegar instead of the syrup & mustard. Addie & Matt really like onions, though, so I think this is the new favorite. Between roasting them & putting them in soup, we have been going through a lot of carrots lately! You will want to spray your baking sheet so the veggies don't stick. Oh, and feel free to leave out the parsnips if you don't have them or don't like them! Also, note that my veggies never take this long to cook - maybe I just cut them really small.

Oven Roasted Carrots & Parsnips

• 1 lb parsnip, peeled and cut ito 1 inch pieces
• 1 lb carrot, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 onion, cut into wedges
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Directions

1. 
   
   

   1

   Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. 
   
   

   2

   Place parsnips, carrots, onions, oil and thyme in prepared baking dish, toss until veggies are well coated with oil.
3. 
   
   

   3

   Roast in oven for 30 minutes.
4. 
   
   

   4

   Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine maple syrup and mustard.
5. 
   
   

   5

   Pour over veggies, toss to coat.
6. 
   
   

   6

   Roast for another 20 to 25 minutes or until veggies are tender and golden, stirring once.

Match! Match!

It was a typical laundry day last week: there were piles of clothes everywhere & I was trying to get things folded between playing with Addie & taking care of Etta. At one point I was in my bedroom putting clothes away when I heard Addie say something that sounded like "mess, mess". I was not excited to go see what the mess was. I realized when I walked out that she had been saying "match, match".

I have been showing her lately how I match up socks. On her own she had pulled all the clean socks out of a hamper and laid them out on the couch. That was quite a proud mama moment for me!

Disclaimer: this picture is a re-creation of the event & I assisted in laying out the socks for the picture. The socks she laid out may not have been quite as tidy, but they were honestly quite close.

Welcome

I have to admit that I am a voyeur. I happily read other people's blogs but never post comments. Sometimes I email a comment to the person, more often I just think of comments but leave them unsaid. So please do not expect a whole new wave of communication from me. I am still a bit low-tech and am still avoiding facebook!

That said, I decided I would give in and start a blog. This way I can post pictures of my two adorable girls, keep people up to date on the cute things they do, and also potentially unload some of my deep (or shallow) thoughts.

An explanation of the title: Snow White & Rose Red is the name of a fairy tale - look it up! I had to actually. Of course I was familiar with the Disney Snow White character. But this is a different Snow White. The fairy take itself is not that special or impressive to me. What resonates is the names of the two sisters.
My Adeline Noelle is Snow White -light skin, blond hair, born on a snowy Christmas Day.

Ettalyn Rose is my Rose Red - both because of her middle name, as well as her dark hair and rosy cheeks.

I do not want to take the analogy too far, but it struck me & stuck in my head so there you go - a blog is born!