Beef And Barley Casserole

 

My husband loves barley and beef. His favorite soup is beef and barley soup but you see very few barley recipes anymore. I have made this one in many variations for years. A great stick to your ribs alternative to rice.  This is another of those cooking by the seat of your pants meals out of a well stocked pantry.

This one starts with a pint of canned ground beef and pearl barley. 

Mine starts with greasing a 2 quart oven safe baking dish. Then I add the jar of ground beef an envelope of beef onion soup mix. Add to that 1 cup of raw pearl barley. 

(If you were using fresh ground beef I would brown a pound and up my broth by a cup) 

I then added 1/2 cup of dried chopped green onion out of my garden reconstituted in boiling water then drained. This went into the broth and meat mixture. 

I then added 3 cups of beef broth made from my beef base powder in the pantry. I added some garlic powder made from dehydrated garlic again from the garden. In the top of the fridge I ran across a half bag of frozen peas and carrots and added them to the mix. 

Cover with aluminum foil and bake covered at 350 for 1 hour or until barley is cooked. 

(If it dries out before your barley is soft simply add a little more broth and recover and put back in oven. If casserole is too wet once barley is cooked simply remove covering and put it ack in the oven for a few minutes for a little moisture to cook off.)

I made a little pan of dinner rolls to serve with this and some freezer slaw from the freezer.

Another addition or variation to this recipe is to add a container of sliced mushrooms and broccoli along with slivered almonds instead of carrots and peas.  Dehydrated mushrooms work great as well as dehydrated broccoli. Rehydrate first.  

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

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