Wednesday, November 4, 2009

meatless supper #6

This week for Enviromom's Meatless Supper Club I delved back into the Moosewood Cookbook because I just love how friendly and simple the recipes are (and I adore the hand lettering and the illustrations by Mollie Katzen). Wednesday is usually soup night over here, and I have some barley hanging around that needs to be used up, so I chose the Mushroom-Barley soup. I'm a chronic under-reader of recipes, and to be honest I thought I was going to be making a "cream of mushroom" type of thing. Instead, this is an earthy, simple, mushroomy soup. You have to like mushrooms. I love eating this way and in my ideal world would be eating all earthy like this most of the time (in reality we order out for pizza or get Subway frequently). So how did the family like it? Ken is always up for an experiment, Faith and Dieter didn't like it, and little Rainer, bless his heart, ate some of the broth and all his mushrooms! My boys like to pretend they are animals and Rainer said the mushrooms were his bugs (bugs to be eaten . . .). I served this with pear slices, grapes, and acorn cakelets.

Mushroom-Barley Soup--adapted from The New Moosewood Cookbook

1/2 c. barley
6 1/2 c. water
1-3 T. butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 lb. of mushrooms, sliced (I used 2 bags of mushrooms from Trader Joe's--so actually more than a pound)
1/2 t. salt
3 T. soy sauce
2 T. Marsala

Start the barley cooking in 1 1/2 c. water and simmer until tender, 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile, saute the onions in butter in a skillet, then add the mushrooms, garlic, and 1/2 t. salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is very tender, 10-12 minutes. Stir in the soy sauce and Marsala.

Add the saute with all its juices to the pot of barley, along with the remaining water. Simmer another 20 minutes. (The recipe says to add a good grinding of black pepper but I forgot this).

Happy soup night!

10 comments:

Daniela B. said...

Il looks yummy!!I love mushrooms!! :)
have a nice day
:) Daniela from Italy

BellaBree said...

oh YUM! anything with mushrooms and I'm there!...thanks for the reciepe x

Holly C. said...

I love mushrooms and this looks yummy!☺

Jennifer said...

Mmmmm, I love mushrooms and barley, and how sweet that your little one ate all his mushrooms, only one of my kiddos likes them, and only if they are raw. I guess that's a start.

Andrea said...

Looks tasty...

christina said...

Well we can be chronic under readers together because that is me also! This soup does look good though and soup right now is on the list to be made as its hitting that temp where its cold in the mornings and then warms up but the house stays cool and so theres always a chill to the air inside..and I just don't want to turn the heat on...

Kellsey said...

sounds yummr to me! I love mushrooms

hanna said...

I love how you serve your dinners with little interesting sides like fruit slices.

Andria said...

Thanks for posting this recipe. Made it for dinner last night with some whole wheat bread hot out of the oven! This will be on our table many more times this winter.

Karen said...

made the mushroom-barley soup tonight ... really good!! thanks!!