Rainy Day Vegetable Barley Soup

It's been raining all day with a little thunder roll every now and then.  Perfect day for making soup.  This is a simple recipe, easy to make, and you can put pretty much anything in it that you want!

Vegetable Barley Soup

Ingredients:
2 beef soup bones (you can use any type of broth instead, I wanted to make my own because I had the bones)
at least 2 quarts of water
1 cup of barley (this amount depends on how much water you use, my rule of thumb is 4 cups water:1/2 cup barley)
3 diced carrots
2 stalks diced celery
1/2 onion
The above 3 vegetable ingredients are basics for this (and most) soup, the rest is optional; you can almost put any vegetables you like into this recipe
1 small diced kohlrabi (had on hand, grown in a friends garden)
Collard greens (the last of what was still growing in one of our square foot gardens)
Salt & pepper to taste (you will need quite a bit of salt)
Dash of Worcestershire sauce (forgot to include this in the photo)

Make your beef stock by putting the bones into the 2 quarts of water and bring to a boil.  Skim off the foam that rises to the top (I'd like to be able to tell you exactly what that foam is, but there are several explanations on the internet...I can assure you that you don't want it in your broth though); is there anyone out there who would like to share their knowledge about this foam?

Dice all the veggies.

Once all the foam has been skimmed off, which will take about 20 - 30 minutes of boiling, pour your veggies and barley into the pot and bring back to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer for at least 2 hours.  It will take longer than that for bones to release all their flavor and nutrients, but you can remove them any time after the two hours. 

The beautiful thing about this recipe besides it's deliciousness...it's easy and in addition to the barley you can put whatever you want into it!  Perfect for a rainy day...what you have in the fridge/freezer (yes frozen veggies work too, just put them into the soup only 15 minutes or so before serving) will work!

I sure do wish it was cold, because then it might be snowing...ahh, one can dream...

  ...does look like it could snow...wishful thinking!

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise