Vegetable Barley Soup with Sage & Ginger

All of this cold wet weather lends itself to warming, nourishing foods - of course the first thing on any agenda would be to cleanse, but once that detox is complete building your body up with some hearty vegetables in soups is a nice way to get back to yourself. 

I like using barley and would make cakes, cookies and breads with barley flour. Of course there is also Barley coffee which is a lovely warming drink especially on a cold winter night such as we have right now. And I love barley grain in a soup or stew.

Barley is a great thickener as well as a filling addition to any meal - it gives an earthy, nutty flavour to the dish and has been used in our foods for thousands of years. It is also easy to use and you don't need to add much.

Yesterday I made Vegetable Barley Soup with Sage & Ginger - this is a combination of tastes and textures that really work well together. And I happen to think that sage is the great underrated herb of all time.

We often only use it in stuffings or for fowl - but it is a very versatile plant and can be used nearly anywhere. I include it in my herbal teas as often as I can and have even made cookies with it - I will do a post on that soon.

To make my soup I started off as usual with the base - seaweed, garlic, onion, leek, salt, pepper, turmeric. I stir-fried the vegetables in a little olive oil then added them into the stockpot with the seaweed. 

Next I chopped carrots, sweet potato, turnip and a little pumpkin. These went into the pot along with only 1/3 cup of barley grain. This was brought to a boil and then turned down to simmer gently for about 45 minutes or so.

Once the soup was thickening and nearly cooked I put in 1/2 teaspoon each of ground sage (from my garden) and some ground ginger. Normally I would use fresh grated ginger for this type of soup, but as it was for my little daughter, I went easy on it so it would not be too strong.

Within about 10 minutes the soup was done, I let it sit for another while to cool - and then served it with a thick slice of homemade spelt bread with butter. It smelled and looked lovely!

April

Vegetable Barley Soup with Sage & Ginger