I received this recipe from friend, and founder of the amazing The Right Pillow. This Winter bean and barley soup according to Chrissy, “This soup is a vegetarian meal, with most ingredients found right in your pantry. It is a one pot dish that can be made early in the day and reheated for lunch or dinner. It is great for cold nights by the fireside or after a day of sledding. ” Enjoy and keep warm!!!
Winter Bean and Barley Soup
3 Tablespoons Grapeseed or Olive Oil
1 Large onion chopped
3 cloves of garlic chopped
6 cups low sodium vegetable broth
1 28 oz can of Roma tomatoes
1 cup pearl barley rinsed
2 cans 15oz Butter Beans (lima) rinsed
1 tsp fresh dried oregano
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 loaf crusty baguette
S&P to taste
Heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Saute onion and garlic until tender, 8-10 minutes. Add the broth and tomatoes with their juices and bring to a boil. With the back of a wooden spoon, crush the tomatoes and remove any ends or skins of tomatoes. Add the barley, reduce heat and simmer until barley is tender, about 20 minutes. necessary for desired soup consistency
Serve: with parmesan and a side of crusty bread for a heartier dish.
I am obsessed with organizing. I love reading articles on how to stay organized, stick to schedules and save money. Oh if only I was able to put these suggestions into practice every day!!!! This is the year!! I am going to try a new organization method each month and share it with you. We can to this…..and AWAY WE GO…Let’s Organize!!
Since this is our kick start month, I am going to give you two tips……
1). Go to you check book….put the new year 2016 on the next 20 checks…no more adding the wrong date when paying your bills!!! I think this is a brilliant suggestion. I would still have been writing 2015 until the middle of March!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) Get rid of unnecessary clutter…..lets this be the month we get rid of the following lying around the house:
- Old Magazines
- Old Shopping Bags
- Old Wrapping paper rolls, especially Christmas!!!! (even if you think there is enough to wrap one last present!!!!)
- Old Tupperware containers…you really only need two or 3 max.
- Lone socks waiting for a mate…I KNOW THIS IS HARD but just let them go!!!!!!!!
- Old towels
- Random Cables and Wires (though I have to do this when my husband is not at home!!!!!!!!!!!!)
- Delete your trash and junk folders on your computer
- Unsubscribe to any unwanted email subscriptions
- Lastly, dispose of any misc. logo mugs. Do you really need that Great Adventure Mug from 10 years ago????
It was 10 degrees in New York this am. Our extended Indian Summer with temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s in December are long gone. The frigid weather is setting in. Last Christmas I won a faux fur blanket in a Yankee Swap. WHAT A TREASURE!!! Everyone in my family fought over it during the coldest nights in January and February, even the dog!!!!! (I kid you not). This year we are armed for the frost…everyone is ready with their own blankets. No more sharing for me. I urge you to try one. Not only are they soooo amazingly warm but they look so chic folded on a bed or over a chair.
This week’s selection has been a difficult choice for me. I keep hearing how amazing and unlike anything ever read before, the story, A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara is, yet also how hard some parts of the story are to read. The plot goes like this….
Brace yourself for the most astonishing, challenging, upsetting, and profoundly moving book in many a season. An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the darkest places fiction has ever traveled and yet somehow improbably breaks through into the light. Truly an amazement—and a great gift for its readers.
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
In rich and resplendent prose, Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and transcendent hymn to brotherly love, a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance. (Amazon.com)
This book is sitting in my wish list on Amazon waiting to be purchased but for some reason, I cannot pull the trigger. Not sure I can handle the parts of the abuse but I am dying to read it. If anyone has read it, please leave your comments below or in the facebook comments and tell us what you thought of the book.
I am taking a short break to spend time with my family. Don’t worry, I will be working on bringing you some of the best posts with the latest and greatest in 2016! We will also have amazing guests on the Radio Show starting in January. If you missed any of the past segments you can listen HERE. Happy New Year!!!
