Week 3: Beef Barley Soup

1 1/2 lbs stew meat, cut into small cubes
3 T. vegetable or olive oil
1 tea salt
1 tea pepper
2 tea garlic powder
32 ou beef broth
6 cups water
4 stalks celery, chopped
6-8 carrots, cut into larger chunks
1 medium onion, chunky
1 pkg mushrooms, halved
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
4 sprigs fresh dill, whole
1 cup barley

Saute beef in oil until cooked throughout.  Stir in salt, pepper, garlic powder.  Drain.  Place all ingredients in crock pot on low for about 6-8 hours.  I served this with cinnamon monkey bread.

I made up this recipe after reading multiple different ones on Allrecipes.com.  I think it needs some more salt and pepper.  I am not a huge salty fan, so I just added salt and pepper as I dished it out.  There are several monkey bread recipes on allrecipes.com as well!  The one I used was "Monkey Bread with a Twist"- I just used the frozen raw biscuit dough instead of the refrigerated and added handfuls of raisins along with the apples.  See the link below for this recipe!

 http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Monkey-Bread-with-a-Twist/Detail.aspx