Beef & barley soup

Living in the mid-west this winter has been pretty tough.  The cold is really starting to get old for us now and we can't believe it's only just February.  I was speaking to a parent from school this morning and he put it well, he said when your kids aren't finding the snow fun anymore, then you really know we've had enough.  It's true.  No one can get outside, and more than that - we don't even want to be outdoors.  Our skin has dried up, our lips are chapped... we look like a hot mess to be frank!  So, here I am cooking away in my kitchen day after day with my heater up to about 70'F and this week I made soup.

This was a super easy and hearty beef and barley soup.  I used a bit of vegemite so those of you here in the US, unless you want to spend about $10 on a small jar of our National pride, then you should just leave it out.  The worcestershire sauce does a good job of boosting the flavor at the beginning and that's all the vegemite does.  It's a strong yeast extract which mirrors a dense beef stock.

We all enjoyed this soup, the girls loved the beef and my husband and I ate this for lunch for a few days. I could have probably used a stick blender and pureed some of the vegetables for the kids servings (leaving the meat whole) and they would have eaten more but it was a thick soup as is and I liked the chunkiness of the veg.  This was a good dish to transfer to the slow cooker as we all needed to eat at various times on this particular night so it stayed warm for every sitting.

Ingredients:
1 large knob of buttter
olive oil
1lb quality stewing beef/chuck steak, 1inch cubes
1 tablespoon vegemite
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 medium brown onion
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 celery sticks, trimmed and chopped
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of rosemary
1 tablespoon flour
sea salt
black pepper
2 litres of organic beef stock
150g pearl barley (not quick barley, the regular stuff)

Method:

• In a large soup pot or saucepan, melt the butter and add a splash of olive oil
• Season the beef with salt and pepper
• Brown the meat on all sides
• Stir in the vegemite and worcestershire sauce. Turn up heat and cook until all the juices, and it does release a lot of juice, has evaporated and the meat is dark and rich in color.
• Add the onions, diced vegetables and herbs and place the lid on top and sweat over low heat until the veggies have softened, about 5 mins.
• Stir in the flour and mix through well for another minute or so, now add the stock.
• Bring to a boil and then turn it down to simmer.  
• Add your barley and cook gently for approx 1-1.5hours or until the meat is tender.
• Taste and season if necessary.  Remove the bay leaf and rosemary.
• If you wish, serve with big chunks of oven warmed ciabatta or french bread.