A little cooking please!

One of my favorite blogs is by a lady in Australia. I have followed her and loved reading her posts about cleaning house with non-chemicals, using natural ingredients; cooking with down home honest foods, nothing super expensive; she makes her own bread and soaps; knits dishcloths, sweaters, etc. She makes her own vinegars and ginger beer! Check it out when you have a bit of time, http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/
One of her latest posts was about making a hearty soup. Off to the farmers market for some root veggies. I found

                                                                    












new potatoes, , onions, , then to the grocery store  for carrots, a turnip, rutabaga (called a Swede by Rhonda~~who knew?) and flat leaf Italian parsley. Mine dried up in the heat/drought we had this summer. I wanted a parsnip but It's too early in the season, it's more of a fall veggie here in the US. So is the rutabaga but I found one. Guess what? It's imported from Canada and is coated in wax! WT....? That's ok, most of the veggies I saw in Canada are imported from the US! Now I'm laughing. Ok, on to cooking.

                                                                                  I followed Rhonda's recipe as much as possible. I made the meat balls from hamburger, I also used ground pork, she didn't, and was going to use that little package of ground turkey, but popped it in the freezer instead, maybe next time.

                                                                               I have never used barley before, strange, I guess I never thought about it. I love the flavor. Rhonda rinsed hers, I just used it out of the box. Was I supposed to wash it first? I cook with Quinoa. Oh dear. The Quaker made it, it must be ready to eat, right?

I popped 1/2 cup in the soup. Yummo!




I first cooked soup bones down with salt, pepper, water and a bay leaf, removed the bones and fed the meat to the Ferrel cats who eat snakes. I love them for that.

                                                                                I cut carrots, potatoes, rutabaga, onions, turnip and fresh parsley, put them into the new stock along with the barley, and simmered for a few hours.

Then I mixed the meats together with salt, pepper, fresh parsley, onions, minced garlic, bread crumbs and 2 eggs. I also grated up a small package of parmasean cheese and a healthy pinch of dried Italian herbs. (I had picked up on close out. It goes bad? Weird, but it was 1/2 price.)  I mixed very well and made meatballs about walnut size, per Rhonda, then added some to the soup and let them simmer gently for about 1/2 hour.

  I formed 2 cookie sheets full of meatballs and popped them in the freezer. I'll separate them into several baggies in the morning and will have them on hand for different dishes.   





This is the soup. It tastes so good. This recipe is a keeper! Let me know if you try this.

Then go see Rhonda and her awesome tutorials of a simple life lived frugally.