Beef & Barley Soup

The other day when I was making Pepper Steak, I had used extra meat from a nice beef tenderloin. I buy whole tenderloins and cut it into filet mignon’s as it’s so much cheaper that way. You have to do a little bit of extra work, but… hey why not? I can’t throw the scraps away—I say scraps because they aren’t filets, just hunks of meat. I save them for stew or soups. A few of the bigger nicer hunks I used in the Pepper Steak.

For the soup, I took the smaller pieces with a little fat, threw them in a pot with some butter until the meat browned.


I added some water to fill the pot, 1 cup of barley and simmered it. Seems like it needed something else, so I chopped up a big onion

(and saved half of it for Beef Stroganoff that I plan on making later). I added half the onion, sprinkled in some garlic powder and poured a little Kitchen Bouquet in for some added color and flavor. It still needed something, so I added a package of Grilled Portabella and Onion soup mix. I was going to have it for lunch, but it was so beefy, I dumped it into the Beef & Barley.

Ingredients:
Beef
Barley

Rating & Type: E/B

Pepper Steak

I had used extra meat from a Beef Tenderloin to prepare this Pepper Steak. I buy a whole tenderloin and cut it into filet mignons as it’s much cheaper that way. You have to do a little bit of extra work, but… hey why not? I save the scraps—I say scraps because they aren’t filets, just hunks of meat. I use them for stew or soups. A few of the bigger nicer hunks I use for other dishes, like Pepper Steak.

This recipe came from my brother-in-law Russ who passed away from cancer. He’s the same Russ who thought my meatloaf was the best he’s ever tasted. His pepper steak is pretty darn good too only I switched the kinds of peppers as I’m not a huge fan of green peppers. I prefer red, orange or yellow. And it's what I had on hand.

Russ’s Pepper Steak
round steak, green pepper, 1 can mushrooms, bouillon cubes, soy sauce, sugar, garlic salt, salt & pepper.
Cut meat in strips,

brown, drain (I didn’t drain and also cooked mine in a little butter). Add cup of water and 2 Tablespoons soy sauce and simmer til tender. Add 1 Tablespoon sugar, mushrooms, green pepper (I used orange and yellow), bouillon cubes, garlic, salt and pepper.

Simmer until cubes dissolve. Add flour and water to make gravy.

Serve over rice or noodles. (I didn’t have cubes, I used a jar of this bouillon paste and I cooked the dish until I felt the peppers would be the way I’d like them.)

Ingredients:
see above

Rating & Type: E/B