Vegan Shiitake Porcini Barley and Chickpea Soup
Today both Baby Bar and Richie were sick in my house. Oh AND I have a sprained ankle which I have no clue how I got. Plus there hasn't been too much sleep around here, so we're struggling on the energy front. We're a pretty pathetic bunch.
It felt like a night for a superheating dinner. Seeing as I wasn't going too far today between the Baby that needed to sleep on me only and the ankle that only stopped throbbing when elevated, I needed to work with what we had around.
Luckily I had enough ingredients for either split pea soup or mushroom barley (for which I had no recipe and would need to wing it). Richie chose mushroom barley, so I took the challenge.
This soup was perfectly simple, earthy, and borderline elegant. It was easy and hearty and totally healing. Here's how I did it:
Ingredients:
- 2 packages of shiitake mushrooms, sliced and stems trimmed and sliced
- 1 small carton of dehydrated porcini mushrooms, rehydrated and drained
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 6 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 cup of hulled (whole grain) barley
- 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 carton of No Chicken Stock (or your favorite veggie stock)
- sea salt to taste
- olive oil
- toasted sesame oil
- truffle oil
- In a large cast iron soup pot (that's my choice of pots for soup making, but you can use whatever you've got around), sauté the shiitakes in 1-2 tblsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt.
- Meanwhile rehydrate the porcinis.
- Cook the mushrooms until theater cooks out and they start to get pretty fragrant.
- Remove the mushrooms from the pot and place them aside on a plate.
- In the pot sauté the onion in 1-2 tblsp of olive oil.
- Once they start to sweat add the garlic and another pinch of salt.
- Cook for apx 2-3 minutes then add the stock, mushrooms (both types), barley, and chickpeas.
- Bring to a boil and then down to a simmer and cover.
- Cook for 45min-1hr.
- Ladel into bowls and finish with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil and truffle oil.
This soup was absolutely perfect for a night like tonight and both Richie and Avi loved their bowls and finished every last drop! I served it with some simply sautéed kale and garlic toasted sprouted grain bread.
