Weeknights have become busy around here, between new year’s resolutions, birthdays, and the usual. This is the time of year when I know I need food to function but I can’t always bring myself to whip up something new each night. The lack of fresh produce in the house doesn’t help either.
It would be really easy to succumb to take out and pre-made frozen foods, but I know my stomach, wallet, and conscience wouldn’t be happy with me if I did. To combat winter food fatigue, I’ve been making larger batches of things to take for lunch with me throughout the week. I’ve stocked the freezer so that when I’m at wits end I don’t end up ordering pizza (at least not again anyway).
This week, the savior dish was a bean and barley soup I’ve been playing with all winter. Basically, I choose two types of dried beans, throw in a cup of barley, onions, carrots, celery, a bay leaf and bouillon and we eat like kings for a week. This kind of soup is filling, incredibly healthy, cheap, and can last for days and days. I bet you could even feed it to an avid meat-eater and they wouldn’t even realize it is vegan.
Here’s my latest recipe, but this soup is flexible enough that you could substitute just about any ingredient for another similar one (except the barley which is needed for its magical thickening powers). (more…)
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