Week 5: Beef & Barley Slow Simmering Soup

I'm starting this blog post a little early, as I wait for the soup to simmer (slooooowly). Since my family doesn't love soup as much as me, I've decided to let them pick their favorite soup. My dad, the traditionalist, asked, "Can't you just make beef soup?" So this is for you, dad.

I like beef but I'm not super jazzed about the beef soup, and I intended to stay away from it since beef is costly, but I also need people to eat my soup, so here I am... cooking and blogging, while I wait for the soup to simmer.... slowly.

This is another busy week, so I'm going by the suggestion of the cookbook and from what I've learned in the last month of making soup and make this a day ahead. Good thing because this soup requires 2 1/2 hours of cooking time and another 20 minutes to chop all the veggies. It better be worth it! At least I can blog while I wait.

Something I am jazzed about, though. I am able to make the soup for a lot less than I thought I could. I have to brag about my savings. Thanks to my dear coupon-cutting friend who gave me a $2.00 off coupon for beef, my Safeway Club Card, the ever-awesome Real Produce and the Campbell's website, I was able to make 8 servings for under $24. That's $3.00 per person for a hearty meal!

So to begin this soup, I cubed the beef to 1-inch pieces and trimmed off extra fat. I also peeled & chopped the carrots, parsnips, celery and onions to 1/4-inch thick slices; potato to 1/2-inch slices and sliced the mushrooms. Once the prep was done... there was more prep. Per recipe, I patted meat dry with a paper towel. In a deep pot, I heated olive oil to coat the pan and added enough meat to cover a single layer. I stirred often to brown all sides for 4-5 minutes and repeated until all the meat was browned then transferred the meet to paper towels to drain oil.

Next step was to wipe the pan of excess oil and add meat, broth, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, 1 teaspoon salt and several grinds of pepper. I brought the soup to a simmer, covered and let simmer for 1 1/2 hours. And now that I write this I realize I could have multi-tasked and used this cooking time to cut the veggies rather than do it at first, but I did get to do all my dishes, so I guess that's ok too.

With the meat cooking, I sauteed the carrots, celery, parsnips and onion with oil for about 5 minutes, until softened and transferred to a bowl. In the same pan, I sauteed the mushrooms with oil until lightly browned for about 4 minutes. After 1 1/2 hours of simmering, I added carrots, celery, parsnips, potato, barley and thyme. After looking in the pot, I decided to add more barley. In all, I probably added 1 1/2 cups barley. And then... simmer for another 45-60 minutes. Stir occasionally and add more water if the soup becomes too thick. Add mushrooms at the end and simmer until heated through, about 3 minutes.


And now it's eat soup day! I invited over my aunt & uncle to help me eat soup. I reheated the soup over medium heat. The soup had absorbed much of the broth, so I did thin it with water and more broth. I added salt, pepper and minced garlic to taste. The beef stayed very tender and tasty and the broth had a good flavor.

I served the soup with salad and sourdough bread. The family loved it, even went back for second helpings! I'm not sure I've had barley before, but Dr. Oz swears by it, and it really added some heartiness (and nutrition) to the soup. The veggies were yummy, I loved the mushrooms and wish I had added more --can there ever be too many mushrooms????

Overall, this was a great recipe. I'm not a huge beef eater, so I still rank last week's cauliflower soup #1, but the family loved it and it was a great hearty meal for a winter night. Definitely comfort food. I think I would make it again if I can get another awesome deal on the beef!

And thank you familia for eating soup with me!

Prep time: lots
Cook time: 2 1/2 hours
Servings: 8
Taste: 4 stars
Prep: Took a looooong time
Cost: $23.89
Ingredients
4 lbs boneless beef chuck / $9.75 /Safeway
Olive oil / from home
8 cups beef stock / 2 @ $3.49 (- $1.00 off coupon) = $5.98/ Safeway
Extra beef stock / $1.39 / Safeway
1 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce / from home
1 teaspoon soy sauce / from home
kosher salt / from home
Freshly ground pepper / from home
3 medium carrots / $0.79/lb = $0.62 / Real Produce
3 ribs celery / $1.69 / Real Produce
2 medium parsnips / $0.79/lb = $1.41 / Real Produce
1 medium onion / $1.74/lb = $0.25 / Real Produce
8 ounces sliced mushrooms / $0.59/lb = $1.76 / Real Produce
1 large Yukon gold potato / from home
1 cup pearl barley / $1.04 / Safeway
1 teaspoon crushed, dried thyme / from home

Souper Bonus!

So just because I'm eating soup once a week, doesn't mean I ONLY eat soup once a week. This week I tried Cream of Zucchini soup from Flames downtown AND homemade pho prepared by my girlfriend, Cat. I usually stay away from cream based soups since they are high in fat and calories, but I was at a working lunch and the options were beef soup or zucchini and the others at the table were raving about the zucchini so I gave in. I ordered the half soup and sandwich and it came with a small serving of soup, so I didn't feel too guilty. Plus, the soup was delish! Possibly even worth the calories, but since I don't know exactly how many calories, I can't confirm that.

For our girls night dinner which coincided with Vietnamese new Year, my lovely friend Catherine made us her awesome pho with all the fixings. Soooo good. I felt like I was in a pho restaurant. She even had chopsticks and those deep spoons! Yummy yum yum!

3 soups in one week and it's only Thursday! Awesome!

Week 1: White Bean Soup with Chorizo & Kale

For my first soup of the year, I choose to make White Bean Soup with Chorizo and Kale. I choose this recipe not only because it is the first in the Winter section of the cookbook, but I was excited about the familiar flavor of chorizo mixed with the new flavors of white beans and kale, two ingredients I have never cooked before.

First off, collecting the ingredients was somewhat of a challenge. Though my freezer is stocked full of Mexican Chorizo, I did not know where to find the Spanish cousin. After some Yelping, I found Goulart Sausage Company not far from my office. I drove there on my lunch break and I was in and out in minutes.

Next challenge: Salt pork. Since I didn't really even know what this is and where I could buy it, I did some general Googling. Turns out it's similar to uncut bacon and very salted. Substitutes include bacon, ham and panchetta, but I choose to at least try and find it. I figured if I couldn't find it or it was way too expensive, I would substitute it for the bacon I already had in my fridge. I made a few calls to the fancy grocery stores along my route home. Turns out that the Nob Hill by my house had a ton and it only cost me $2! (Whole Foods was out, by the way). After a trip to Trader Joe's and Real Produce, it was time to go home and cook!

Preparation & Cooking

The first step was to clean and soak the beans. Though I 'm used to soaking my beans for several hours or overnight, i crossed my fingers that this method of quick soaking would do the trick. I tried to follow the directions and ingredients closely, even though I'm always tempted to put my own spin on food. But I figured I'd stick to the book for at least the first recipe. In retrospect, I would soak the beans the way I'm used to next time, since they ended up taking quite a while to cook. Nevertheless, I cleaned the beans, placed them in a heat resistant bowl and covered them with 8 cups boiling water for 1 hour.

While the beans soaked, I sauteed the onions, carrots, and celery with the olive oil and then added the garlic after the veggies were softened. I rinsed and cut the salt pork in 4 pieces. Since I only needed a fourth of the salt pork, I cut it in smaller pieces and froze the rest for another recipe.

After the beans soaked, I drained and rinsed the beans and added the beans and salt pork to the vegetables. I stirred in thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and 10 cups broth. The recipe actually called for chicken stock, but I went with Trader Joes's Low-sodium chicken broth instead.

I let the pot simmer for 1 hour, covered. I tasted the soup at this point, and sadly, was not impressed. I then wished I had used the stock which would have given the broth more flavor. I didn't give up though; there was still a few ingredients missing.

I let the pot simmer fo another hour with the chorizo. The recipe called for "30 minutes, until beans were tender" but the were definately not tender after 30 minutes. Maybe if I had soaked them longer... but who knows. This is my first time cooking white beans. Once I was satisfied with the beans, I removed the salt pork and threw it away. The recipe up to this point can be made a day or two ahead, so I tooka advantage of that. I let the pot cool and refrigerated it until the next day. Oh, and the broth had become much tastier after the addition of the chorizo. I also added more salt and pepper before refrigerating.

The next day, I reheated the pot over medium heat and added the kale to the simmering soup, cooking for about 3 minutes until wilted. And that was that. I served the soup with Parmesan cheese and Pilsbury Crescent rolls.


Eating

Overall, this recipe was pretty easy to make and it came out pretty good. The family enjoyed it, and they had a ton of questions about the chorizo. I wasn't too excited about the flavor of the kale, and I think spinach leaves would have also been yummy. But the flavor of the chorizo in the broth was quite yummy and gave the soup a little kick (along with the red pepper flakes). Not sure I'm in a hurry to make this again, but I will enjoy the leftovers.

Summary

White Bean Soup with Chorizo and Kale
Prep time: 1 hour (to soak beans and chop veggies)
Cook time: 2 hours on night 1, 20 min on day 2
Servings: 6
Taste: 3 stars (1 = yuck, 4 = yum)
Preparation: easy
Cost: $26.82
Stores: 4
Ingredients:
1 lb dried great Northern beans / $1.34 / Nob Hill
1 4-ounce piece of salt pork / $2.69/lb = $2.02 / Nob Hill
3 tablespoons olive oil / from home
2 cups shredded carrots / $0.69/lb = $0.69 / Real Produce
2 cups chopped celery / $1.19 / Nob Hill
2 cups chopped onion / $1.79/lb = $1.56 / Real Produce
freshly ground black pepper / from home
1 tablespoon dried thyme / $1.99 / Trader Joe's
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes / from home
5 large garlic cloves peeled and chopped / from home
10 - 12 cups chicken stock / 3 @ $1.99 = $5.97 / Trader Joe's
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, more if needed / $1.79 / Nob Hill
8 ounce Spanish chorizo / $5.00 / Goulart Sausage Company
5 cups loosely packed, chopped kale, stems removed / $0.99 / Real Produce
Parmesan cheese (for garnish) / $3.29 /Trader Joe's