Recipe #297: Beef Mushroom Barley Soup

Well, the weather wants to be fall-ish, so I decided to make soup!  Here's a simple delicious recipe that's even better as leftovers.  Copied from Allrecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS:

2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into small pieces 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 1/2 onion, chopped 3 stalks celery, chopped

3 carrots, chopped 7 1/2 cups beef stock 8 ounces pearl barley 1 pound mushrooms, sliced

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Cook beef stew meat in a large skillet over medium heat until completely browned, 5 to 7 minutes; transfer to a large soup pot.  (I browned the beef in bacon fat with some garlic salt)
2.	Heat vegetable oil in the same skillet over medium heat; cook and stir onion, celery, and carrot in the hot oil until the onions are tender, about 5 minutes. Add the vegetable mixture to the beef in the pot.  (I left the fat from the previous step and didn't add any oil)
3.	Pour beef stock into the pot.
4.	Stir pearl barley into the stock.
5.	Place soup over medium-low heat, bring to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the beef is completely tender, about 2 hours.  (I did this for about 1.5 hours and tested occasionally for tenderness.)
6.	Stir mushrooms through the soup; cook 1 hour more.  (45 minutes was enough.)