Suppa Club's Beef Barley Soup

The Suppa Club current recipe is Mom's Italian Beef Barley Soup from allrecipes.com. The original recipe is very basic and perfect for changing up every time you make it.



INGREDIENTS

2 pounds cubed beef chuck roast
5 cups water
4 cubes beef bouillon, crumbled
1/2 onion, chopped
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
3/4 cup uncooked pearl barley
salt and pepper to taste



And the directions are even easier:



DIRECTIONS
In a slow cooker, combine beef, water, bouillon, onion, tomato sauce, barley, salt and pepper. Cover, and cook on Low for 5 hours.



This recipe came at a perfect time as I had just picked up a beef roast on sale and was wondering what I was going to do with it. I read Siri and Molly's posts about the soup and got a few ideas from them as well. I started with all the ingredients from the original recipe except salt. In the end, I decided my modifications were based on "let's use this stuff up". So here's what was in my pantry or fridge that needed using up:

• Pearl Barley (yes it's in the original recipe but I only had a bit left in the bag after I added the 3/4 cup so I used it up-maybe about 1 cup total)



• Italian Seasoning Blend (about 1 1/2 tablespoons left in the jar)



• marjoram (maybe 1/2 teaspoon left in the jar)



• garlic (a bunch of smaller cloves left in the middle of the head which probably equalled about 4 large cloves)



• carrots (2 large carrots)

My kids and I threw this together in the morning in about 15 minutes. It was in the crock pot all day on low (more like 8-9 hours than 5). My husband picked up a lovely loaf of 5 grain bread with a crunchy crust and soft interior that was perfect with this soup. This was a great meal and the leftovers are even better. I need to remember to put pearl barley back on my grocery list so that I can make this again someday.

And in case anyone wants to know what my kids favorite recent dish was (so very gourmet)...