went shopping with hubby yesterday. Progresso soups were on sale I picked up the beef barley and looked at picture. 'I can do better than that with the steak I have at home.' So I picked up a bag of mixed frozen vegetables instead.

At home I chopped the meat, celery, & rutabagas and onion. I browned the meat in a heavy pot, added garlic cloves and the onion and let them cook a little. Then I added the other ingredients plus lemon pepper, thyme and rosemary plus Hungary paprika paste (maybe spicy tomato paste), 6 c of water and 2 handsful of barley. After 45 min of simmering, I tasted. Not much flavor. I ate a bowl anyway. For my husband I added a lot of garlic powder, paprika, Italian seasoning and let it simmer 15 min. more. No idea how it tasted but he ate it. I measured the leftovers into several storage containers for another day.

Actually, a crusty multi-grain seed bread was really good with it.