Mushroom Barley Soup

Mushroom Barley Soup

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
6 large cloves garlic, minced
4 large portobello mushrooms, chopped into chunks
1 1/4 cup pearled barley, uncooked
2 quarts vegetable broth (I like Pacific)
1 cup chopped parsley
1 15 oz cans black beans
Fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces – not sure how many I used but I think a little less than a pound
1 tsp Italian seasoning
up to 2 tablespoons salt


Throw all the ingredients except the salt and the vegetable broth into a large soup pot. Pour in enough of the vegetable broth to a little more than cover. If there is not enough vegetable broth, add enough water to a little more than cover everything. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for about 1½ hours until it tastes like soup. Do not be disturbed if it seems bland it probably just needs salt! At the end of cooking, add the salt a bit at a time until it tastes good. If it just doesn't seem to taste flavorful enough add some miso paste however I made the soup just this way and it didn't need it. :-) It takes about an hour for the barley to get done but this soup is yummy!

Note: I will make this soup next time using enough vegetable bouillon cubes to make 8 cups and use that instead of the vegetable broth because I think the soup would taste better even though it actually tasted quite good this way.

Also, it tastes much much better with pearled barley but originally I made it with unpearled barley which still has the bran.