Recipe: 7 Bean and Barley Soup

Here in the big city we have Whole Foods that are starting to spring up around town to give competition to the other large supermarket chains already established here.

I recently visited one and liked how they sell their dried grains and beans in bulk which often times is cheaper than pre-packaged name brands. There is a scale in the department so you can weigh and print out the price tag for your purchase. I bought their 7 Bean and Barley mix for $2.69/lb.

The soup mix bin has a miniscule little blip of a recipe stating that you need 1 chopped onion, 1 pound of soup mix, and 8 cups of water but that sounded too bland. Searching the internet came up with a couple of recipes but they utilized bacon, smoked ham hock, or smoked turkey and I wanted to make it simple, healthier (after all it's a bean soup) and not needing expensive ingredients.

That being said, I created this simple, economically friendly recipe.

You can also use vegetable stock in place of the chicken stock if you wish to make it purely vegetarian.

Makes about 4 hearty servings.

Ingredients

• 1 pound 7 Bean and Barley soup mix
• 1 large onion (chopped)
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 2 tablespoons oil (corn, canola, olive oil... it's your choice)
• 2 cans low sodium chicken stock (14.5 oz cans)
• water (2 cans worth)
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Rinse the bean mix and soak in a large bowl of water for 8 hours or overnight to plump the dried beans back up again.
2. Drain the bean mix and set aside.
3. In a large 4 quart pot, saute the garlic and onion in the oil for 2-3 minutes over medium heat.
4. Add the drained bean mix
5. Add the 2 cans of chicken stock
6. Add 2 cans worth of water (great way to rinse out the chicken stock cans for recycling!)
7. Cover pot and bring to a boil.
8. Once it starts to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 hours.
9. Add salt and pepper to taste.