Beef and Barley Soup

Old Man Winter is not letting go of his chilly grasp just yet.  In fact we encountered rather ugly roads with heavy slush and freezing rains coming home from the kids this past weekend.  As a result I'm still in soup making mode.  Soups are just so easy to make and they are one dish where you can let your creativity run wild.  Basically anything goes with soups as long as you have a stock or broth and one or more vegetables then one or more of optional ingredients like meat or poultry, grains, lentils, dried beans or noodles.

Barley is a rather underused grain in our home and yet is it very easy to cook.  It goes quite nicely in a soup especially anything beef based.  I made a delicious beef and barley soup a couple of nights ago.  Unlike a lot of my beef soups I added tomato paste to the stock for a zesty flavour. 

While I keep a lot of home canned stocks on hand and use a lot of stocks in cooking I often make soups right from scratch.  That is I make the stock first usually using a pressure cooker than I finish off the soup on the stovetop or in the slow cooker.  This allows me the greatest level of creativity to take the soup in which ever direction desired.

Beef and Barley Soup

2 beef soup bones
1 medium onion
1 carrot
1 parsnip
1 stalk celery

Wash but do not peel vegetables.  Cut carrots, parsnip and celery into 3-inch pieces.  Cut unpeeled onion into quarters.  Place vegetables and soup bones in 6 L pressure cooker.  Fill with water to the  ⅔ mark on the pressure cooker.  Secure the lid.  Place on high heat to bring to pressure.  Reduce heat to just the point where the pressure cooker maintains pressure.  Cook for 40 minutes.  Remove from heat and allow to de-pressurize.

Add 1 lb stew beef and about 2 c of water.  Bring pressure cooker to pressure then cook 30 minutes.  Remove from heat and let de-pressurize.  Remove meat pieces and any meat from the bones.  Cut meat pieces into bite size and place in slow cooker.  Strain the stock mixture pouring stained stock into slow cooker.

Add:

1 bay leaf
6 oz tomato paste
⅔ c barley (soaked using quick method)
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Cook in slow cooker on high 2 hours.  Sauté a half pound of sliced mushrooms in butter.  Drain and stir into soup.  Add 2 cups frozen peas.  Continue cooking on high 10 minutes.  Remove bay leaf and serve.

Kitchen Quick Tips - Turning White Sugar Into Brown

If you need brown sugar for a recipe but you are out, the substitutions are:

• light brown sugar - 1 c granulated sugar mixed with 1 tbsp molasses
• dark brown sugar - 1 c granulated sugar mixed with 2 tbsp molasses

Second Attempt at Homemade Taco Shells

Taco Bell was one of the very few fast food restaurants I would indulge in for the tacos but it's on my hit list of never to eat at again restaurants so I am on a quest to make homemade tacos from scratch.  That means I want everything made from scratch including the shell and the seasoning.  This quest is all about creating the perfect taco!  During our last vacation I bought a tortilla press and masa harina.  My first attempt at making tortillas was encouraging.  With a bit of tweaking I should be able to get as good as if not better than store bought tortillas.  Tortillas can be formed into salad bowls and taco shells.  I was a bit disappointed in the first taco shells I made so was on to plan B.

Google is an amazing tool that saves an awful lot of leg work.  I made a note to check for some type of taco form the next time I was at a kitchen specialty shop.  Being rather impatient I did a search to find that such a character does exist then went onto eBay and purchased one.

The taco shell maker I bought is really a simply designed tool meant to get the perfectly shaped taco shell.  Now some would question why I would want to make my own taco shells since they are quite inexpensive.  The reason is quite simple in that I am after the fresh flavour of homemade.  Saving a bit of money on the cost of taco shells by making homemade is just an added bonus.  Making taco shells one at a time likely is not practical for a larger family but it works for our needs.  I'm sure there are taco shell formers available that will make more than one at a time.

Pictured is the taco shell maker in use.  I put a fresh made tortilla shell into the form then proceeded to fry it in the deep fryer.  Here I ran into my first problem.  The depth of my deep fryer does not allow the loaded taco shell maker to be fully immersed so the shell cooks all at once.  This is not a huge problem as it only takes a few seconds to fry on each side.  The second problem is the actual design of the taco shell maker that when flipped over to fry the other side leaves a gap of unfried tortilla at the handle side.  It is impossible to get this portion into the oil given the design.  The alternative is to use an open pot of oil on the stove deep enough that the entire form can be submersed.  While this is an option, it is not one I'm overly warm to since heating oil on the stove is more of a safety risk than using a temperature controlled deep fryer. 

There has been progress in my journey towards making homemade taco shells.   The end result were delicious homemade beef tacos.  The homemade taco shells were quite good but they are not the same texture as store bought taco shells.  Masa harina is quite a fine grind so the resulting taco shells are smoother and crispier than store bought.  I'm looking for a homemade taco shell closer in texture to store bought.  To my way of thinking using a corn meal mixture should give me what I'm looking for.  Corn meal is a bit coarser so I will be experimenting with that for the next batch of taco shells.  I will also try making them just a bit thicker as the ones made with the masa harina were a bit difficult to work with.  They kept tearing on me.  I also did not like that the shells made with masa harina had jagged edges.  While this doesn't affect the flavour it is an aesthetics thing.  So back to the drawing board for my next attempt that will hopefully be closer to what I'm after.

Old Fashioned Sponge Toffee

Each year just before Christmas my Mom made a batch of old fashioned pull toffee.  I was able to help with the pulling once the candy cooled enough for my small hands to handle.  It's the only candy my Mom ever made.  I recall she tried making fudge a few times but it never worked so she gave up.  I started candy making while still at home and have continued to make different candies over the years.  Most of the candy I make is for special occasions  and gift giving. 

Candy making is a lot of fun as you can easily make candies you can't buy in the grocery stores.  Homemade candies are inexpensive to make.  They are sure to delight!  Aside from working with hot sugar that can give a very nasty burn, the biggest problem in candy making is the weather.  It is best to make candy on a dry, low humidity day as high humidity will cause the candy to fail.  The reason being the sugar absorbs the moisture from the air which causes the candy to set up improperly.  Other than those two factors, candy making is quite easy to do.

When I was growing up we had two tiny variety stores in our very small town of less than 2,000 people.  My friends and I knew who made all the great homemade candy but the variety stores had candy that wasn't homemade.  One of my favourites was old fashioned sponge toffee.  This crispy delight was meant to be broke into uneven pieces to be enjoyed.  If I was careless and didn't wrap the left over chunk well, by next morning it would be nothing more than a thick, gooey syrup.

Old fashioned sponge toffee gets its name from its appearance that resembles a sponge.  The candy is hard and brittle yet melts in your mouth.  I have seen sponge toffee presented with melted chocolate for dipping but it is delightfully yummy without the chocolate!

Old Fashioned Sponge Toffee

1 c granulated sugar
1 c corn syrup
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp baking soda

Combine sugar, corn syrup and white vinegar in a large sauce pan.  Stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved then continue to cook on medium to 300ºF (hard crack stage).  Remove from heat and quickly stir in the baking soda.  Pour the frothy mixture into a buttered pan.  Allow to cool then break into pieces.