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SOUP-er Fridays #3 Omnibus

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Last week me and The Other came down with the flu. We still did SOUP-er Fridays, but switched to an easier soup than what was originally planned.  We ended up making Cheddar Broccoli soup, which I normally don’t like, but this was good. Better than the Tomatoe Cream soup, but still not as good as the Beef Barley Soup.

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Over the weekend I had a cat show.  In between selling my own wares I was able to shop for some items for me.  The best part of the show was when I found a show that stole silly kitty hats! Everyone who knows me will know how much I love 1. – wearing hats, and 2. – dressing up my cats. It’s the best of both worlds!!  I also found another booth that sold human hats so I got one for myself as well (see point #1)

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There was another shop that sold embroidered shirts…and embroidered toilet paper. Now there is something you have to buy when you see it. This is something rappers would have in their house – Ridiculous!!

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I also found another use for my metal Starbucks card – is there anything that card can’t do!

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I ate dinner Saturday night with my cousin and her husband at a Vietnamese restaurant. I had never tried Vietnamese food before but I really liked it. I had the Beef Rice Noodle Soup.  The serving was HUGE and I had enough for 3 leftovers.

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SOUP-er Fridays #2

So I’m a little late in posting this but it was Valentine’s Day! And I may have had a glass or two of wine…….

Regardless – here it is now! The second installment of SOUP-er Fridays! This week we made Creamy Tomato Soup. It was good, I ate it with grilled cheese (duh!)  The soup was a little thicker than I like of my tomato soups – almost like eating pasta sauce!  For the leftovers, The Other recommended I add more cream and that helped out a bit to make it more soupy and palatable.

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And special thanks to Jackie for my Christmas gift of a PlatyPreserve!!!  It can hold a full bottle of wine (although this time it only had to hold half).  No messing with corks and its doing an awesome job of keeping the slight carbonation in my delicious Moscato.

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SOUP-er Friday!

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I found this magazine last time I went to Mariano’s.  I really love soup so I picked it up and went home to mark which ones I would like to try.  Upon handing the magazine to “The Other” so he could begin preparing me my food he asked if it wouldn’t have been easier just to mark the soups I DIDN’T want to try.  Perhaps – but that isn’t my style!

After further discussion in which I told him that every Friday we would cook a soup from the magazine and he rolled his eyes I picked the first soup – Beef Barley Soup. Probably my all time favorite soup.

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I had a lot of fun shopping for the ingredients for this soup and couldn’t wait to try it.  It was going to be a long soup – especially since we opted to make the stock from scratch rather than buy it in a box/can

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The first step was to soften the onions and brown the bones and beef for the stock.  It was a long process – especially the bones.

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After that you added some more ingredients (red wine, bay leaf, etc) and let the stock simmer for 2 hours!

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Once the stock was done, you strained out the onions, beef and bones, keeping the beef aside to add to the soup later.  Ideally we would have let the stock cool (at least overnight if not longer) so we could de-fat it. However this was dinner and I was way to excite to care about a little extra fat or a slightly foggy broth.

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The other ingredients for the soup were barley (obviously), mushrooms, carrots, onions, diced tomatoes, thyme, and the beef!

The beef was delicious after being slow cooked for 2 hours. Even with little to no seasoning it was fantastic! I can tell you I ate more than a little while prepping the other ingredients.  Brutus like it as well.

Once the ingredients went it, it was another hour of simmering until the soup was ready.  Luckily I filled up on all that beef during prep 🙂

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The final product was delicious. My only complaint was that the beef to vegetable ratio was off (we had added all the beef since we didn’t have another use for it, but you were only supposed to add 2 cups).  I know its a silly complaint – too much beef? how can that be? But here we are. I think in the future I am going to serve it over some egg noodles or mashed potatoes. Carbs will help – carbs always help!

Brutus on the other hand had no complaints except that he didn’t get enough beef. Here is him in a sleepy stupor

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