Winter is here, Barley Broth to comfort and sustain!

The start of December and snow lies all around, not deep and crisp and even but sparse and slushy and slippy!  We have had two snow falls in the last fortnight here in west Aberdeenshire but so far the temperature has still been warm and to my delight the garden and polytunnel are still yielding produce for us.  I spent a few minutes rooting around the other day and picked enough to make a big pot of broth, one of our family favourites at this time of year.

I used everything apart from the cavalo nero, which I saved for the next evening's supper.

Ali's Winter Barley Broth

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 onions 

a Handful of carrots (probably around 3 medium sized ones)

2 sticks of celery

3 leeks

Big handful of parsley

1 cup of barley, soaked overnight in plenty of water

Approximately 1.5 lt/3 pints of chicken or veggie stock (I use homemade)

Some leftover chicken (from the bird used to make the stock, I buy local free range chickens so always use every bit of them)

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the onions, and start by gently softening them in the oil in a large soup pan or casserole.

2. Once the onions have started to become translucent, add the chopped carrots, celery and leeks.  Give this all a good stir and cook away until the pot starts to sizzle.

3.  Add your stock and barley at this stage, followed by as much chopped parsley as you fancy.  Bring everything to a gentle boil.

4.  At this point I pop a lid on the pot and put it in the bottom oven of my Aga for a good hour to gently simmer away.  I don't season at this stage as I always wait until the barley has become soft and toothsome before I do.  On a regular cooker just reduce the heat until you have a low simmer and cook for about the same time, stirring regularly.

5.  The broth is cooked when the Barley has plumped up but still has a bit of bite to it.  This is when I season and then add the pre-cooked left over chicken and bring it all back up to a rolling simmer for about 10 minutes before serving.  We eat this with oatcakes, it will stick to your ribs as my Mum used to say!

I make many variations of this soup, sometimes with lentils, split peas too and depending on what we have in the garden, but I have to say that this version with barley in is my favourite.  Just the thing for the dark and short days we have at this time of year.

I got this lovely shot of Brooke our Shetland pony coming in for some hay last weekend.  I am trying to keep the horses out this year, as we now only have one 'big' horse, Brea, and two little ones, Brooke (above) and the even smaller MissyBell who is an American Miniature Horse.  As the herd are all getting on a bit I'd rather they keep moving, eating ad lib hay whenever they want than stay in stables at night, however, the condition of our fields and quantity of mud is always the deciding factor.  I much prefer cold, sunny and frosty weather and I think the horses do too!

Wondering if this will be my last post for 2015?  Perhaps it is, but I hope to return more regularly in the New Year.

Wishing you and yours all the very best for the festive season and a happy and healthy 2016 to us all!

Ali
x

Leftover lunch for a useless Tuesday

Today hasn't exactly gone as planned, went outside (as usual) this morning to give my hens some feed, broccoli stalks and weeds (they are confined to their run at the moment due to next door's cat and both legbars laying somewhere in the garden - yummy for Rosie and Dash our labradors, not for us), afterwards I had planned to meet my husband in town to choose a new carpet for our bedroom (probably more on that later!), of course he was busy so I couldn't get hold of him.
I decided that I may as well go and do some food shopping instead, and started getting ready to leave the house - no purse!  Pants, where was my purse? (and panic too!), picked up phone to call hubby (again) and there is a message from my hairdressers in Aberdeen (30 miles away) was there something wrong as I had an appointment at 11.15 (it's now 11.30!) - double pants, phone them back and apologise for completely forgetting about it, next appointment is in three weeks time - by which time I'll look like my Welsh Sec A pony!!!  Anyway, call to hubby is made, he found my purse in his car - so now I'm stuck, I tell him I may as well just go and lie in a darkened room......

However, I log onto to twitter instead and catch up with what's happening and see a post from a fellow blogger who I follow.... and it's all about food, lovely food and tea-flavoured cocktails and biscuits (I highly recommend following The English can cook) now I'm hungry and find some leftover filo pastry from last week's spinach pie and leftover tomato and mozarella salad from Sunday's dinner - excellent, the day has been redeemed!

Leftover Tuesday pie

some sheets of filo pastry
melted butter
leftover tomato salad (tomatoes, basil, mozeralla and good balsamic vinegar)
black pepper

Brush the sheets of filo with the melted butter and use to line a individual sized pie dish (I used about 4 sheets). Put in the salad and season with black pepper. Brush any left over filo with butter and then scrunch up to make the top of the pie (you just wodge it all in, it will look better once it's baked). Pop into a preheated oven (my aga is always on so I just put it on the bottom of the top oven - probably around 180oC?) - cook for 15/20 minutes until brown.


Eat straight from the pie dish - minimal washing up!

Eat and enjoy and feel as if the rest of the day can continue!