Missing in action

[jamethiel]

Apologies for the lack of posts this week, peoples. I came down with the plague (translation: a very bad cold and ear infection) and spent most of the week in bed.

I still managed not to eat out though! And this leads into a handy tip for eating at home:

Soup is your friend. If you make a big pot of soup (3-4 meals worth) it will keep in the fridge for a week or in the freezer for a couple of months. It is a lifesaver for those "Too tired to cook" moments. Soup is incredibly easy and incredibly hard to mess up.

My soup for this week was "Pearl barley and vegetable" If you use vegetable stock, it's vegan. This is the simplest recipe EVER. You probably all know how to cook this and it's a case of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, but I promise you that it is one of the easiest things you will ever make (I made it while having to lie down on the kitchen floor every couple of minutes) and it is TASTY.


Caveat: This quantity is for eight to ten. You may want to divide it by half or four if you're cooking for one. Quantities are unimportant for this, except you want enough stock to cover your veges and then a couple of inches over.

Pearl Barley and Vegetable stock
Ingredients
250g Pearl Barley
4 litres of stock
3 turnips
2 Parsnips
4 Carrots
1 head of broccoli
1 capsicum (bell pepper/sweet pepper)
500g french beans
2 onions
8 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Thyme
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Time taken
20-25 minutes prep, 1 hour plus of cooking.

Cost: approximately $10-12 dollars Australian. Less if you can get your hands on leftovers.

Method:
1. Dice all of the vegetables. You're looking for about half inch in terms of diameter. Keep the onion separate
2. Mince the garlic
3. Heat the olive oil (just a couple of tablespoons) and add the garlic. Cook for 30 seconds until you can smell the aroma. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until soft. Add the rest of the vegetables and the stock.
4. Cover the pot and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the veges are tender (anywhere from 20 minutes to 40 minutes)

What are your "Oh god, I'm sick, I can make this in my sleep!" recipes?

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

I've never heard the term "pearl barley" before. I'm assuming it is what I would just call barley. Mmmmm Barley. I needed a good barley soup recipe. I imagine this would work just fine in a slow cooker as well.

[vass]

Pearl barley is to unpearled barley as white rice is to brown.

[jumpuphigh]

Nice analogy. :)

[jamethiel]

Absolutely! In a slow cooker, you could probably reduce the amount of stock by a little as you're not losing any in evaporation.

Pearl barley is one of those things my grandma used to cook. But, tasty and cheap. I try to have lentils or something if I'm not having a meal with meat

[viklikesfic]

I've been following the challenge more or less--I did eat out a few times when I was in New York this week, but I was with family and not paying for it (and didn't really have a choice in the matter anyway). I did manage to control myself in Penn Station with all the shiny fast foods glaring down at me and eat my lame peanut butter sandwich instead :-) My only cheat so far was that I did get a donut at the train station in Baltimore. For some reason I was starving and the energy bar I'd packed wasn't nearly enough to get me through a three hour train ride. Oh well. I'm doing my best :-)

[sporky_rat]

You could have also been needing the sugar in that doughnut if your levels were down any.

I didn't eat out, but a friend bought me supper at the Waffle House as a payment on helping her unload gear from a weeklong SCA event. I don't count it when it's someone else buying/no other choice.

[viklikesfic]

Yeah, I mean if the point were health or something I would, but since the goal is not to splurge by paying for food "out," I think it's all right if someone buys you a meal. And this is possible about the sugar. I don't ever think of *needing* sugar, b/c I've been trying to cut back (I used to eat like five sweets a day and I'm a thin person, so that was a good half of my food intake). But I'm sure I do, occasionally.

[jamethiel]

God, Kudos for doing it while you're away from home! The bakery is my downfall, especially at this time of year when there are hot cross buns.

[vass]

It's also good with brown/green lentils. And you can use miso as stock. Unless you add too much of it, you can't taste that's miso, it just tastes pleasantly brothy.

[jumpuphigh]

This is a great idea! I really don't like veggie broth from the store in my soups but I do love miso. *adding to shopping list*

[jamethiel]

Ooh! Miso! I'll have to try it!

[kaptainvon]

Soups and stews are love. I got three days' meals for two out of a sausage/apple/potato stew I made last weekend (okay, those and a block of noodles, after the sausages were gone), and I've high hopes for the week's saved vegetable bits (which I still think is a nifty idea).