First, you need some beef. I usually buy the 'stew beef' for this recipe, but there was none at my local Publix (I blame the "Great Atlanta Blizzard of 2010" since we got 1/2 inch of snow, everyone freaked out and bought all the food from the grocery store). I bought this hunk of beef roast meat instead, cut it into three big portions, used one for the soup and threw the rest in the freezer for another day. It probably ended up being 3/4 of a pound of beef. Kindly notice the adorable cow on the cutting board, in case you didn't fully realize that the piece of meat is beef.
Chop the beef up into bite sized pieces small enough to fit on your soup spoon.
I like to marinate my beef overnight in about 1/3 of a bottle of red wine. I started doing this mostly because I had some leftover wine that was no longer good for drinking and because I like the idea of wine in food. This step is totally optional, I have no idea if it adds to the flavor.
Get started chopping your vegetables on the morning of the day you're making the soup. This baby takes 6-8 hours in the crock pot so you do need to plan ahead. In no particular order, you'll need: 3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced.
1 to 1/2 cups of carrots, sliced or diced. I used baby cut carrots and slice them into thin strips.
You will need to ignore the adorable, begging puppy. He just cannot stay out of the kitchen. He never even eats vegetables when I give them to him so I'm not sure why he's so interested in the floor.
1 to 1/2 cups diced celery. I used about 5 celery stalks.
Some potatoes, diced. I used about 6 petite red creamer potatoes.
1 to 2 small white onions, diced.
Now, the piece de resistance, the mushrooms. I find most people either love or hate mushrooms. Brian hates them, I enjoy them very much in certain applications. They are supurb in this soup. I used one 8 ounce package of pre-sliced cremini mushrooms. Since the slices were huge, I also diced them up. I'm usually not a big fan of buying pre-cut vegetables unless they're on sale since they're so much cheaper whole. But I find that mushrooms are a huge hassle to clean and the sliced ones cost the same as the whole ones, so it makes sense to buy them sliced. Work smarter, not harder.
Pull your marianted beef out of the fridge and dump it along with the vegetables, a few dried bay leaves, some fresh cracked black pepper, and 6-8 cups of beef stock into a crock pot. A word of caution about crock pots, in order for them to work efficiently you need to fill it at least half full with delicious goodies. I put this soup into my 6 quart crock pot and it fit beautifully. If yours is a different size, you may need to modify the recipe. I also have this super cool crock pot (thanks MD!) that has 2 and 4 quart bowls that work with one base, so I can choose to make less soup, though I would never do that.
Set the heat to low and let it cook for 6 hours. Its in your best interest to leave your house for a few hours during this time and come home when the soup is almost done. You'll be greated with a lovely beef barley aroma that will make you want to eat the soup right then, but you really should wait for the barley. After 6 or so hours, add 1 cup of pearled barley and cook for another hour or so until the barley is done.
After an hour, give the soup a taste to make sure the barley is cooked and everything is delicious. I had to add a pinch of salt to mine since I used low sodium broth. Remove the bay leaves and enjoy!
This recipe made 10 1-cup servings. Estimated calories are 225 with 2 grams of fat, 20 miligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium. 35 grams of total carbs, 5.6 grams of dietary fiber and 15 grams of protein.
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