Hamburger Barley Soup Recipe

• 4 litres (quarts) of beef broth or bouillon cubes with water
• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
• 4 litres of water (use the tomato can)
• 1 cup of red wine
• 1 cup of pearl or pot barley
• 2 large chopped onions
• 4 chopped carrots
• 4 chopped celery stalks including leaves
• 5 cloves diced garlic
• 1 half cup diced fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon course salt 
• 1 tablespoon thyme
• 1 tablespoon rosemary
• 1 tablespoon crushed black peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves

• 2 pounds lean ground beef or 6 cups chopped cooked roast beef
• 1 can kernel corn

• Optional one package of onion soup mix or two tablespoons soya sauce or two tablespoons Worcestershire sauce.

Add all the ingredients except corn, beef and optional.  Bring to boil. Cover and simmer slowly for about 1 and one half hours.

Add one can of kernel corn with juices.  Scramble-fry lean ground beef.  Add to soup and cook soup another half hour.

This recipe makes about 12 litres of soup and can easily be halved or quartered.

First off you need a big pot.  This one is 16 litres.

Group photo of most of the ingredients.  The flat of ground beef is about two kilograms or just over four pounds.  I used half of it for my soup and made hamburgers for dinner with the other half.

Home grown, then dried rosemary and thyme.  The white stuff is coarse salt.

  Five cloves of garlic.

Hmmmm red wine.

Crushed black peppercorns.

 

 Two bay leaves.

Crush the thyme, rosemary and black peppercorns together with a pestle and morter.

 

 Chopped carrots and diced garlic

 Simmer soup for 1 and half hours. 

Scramble-fry 2 pounds lean ground beef.  I sprinkled seasoning salt, pepper and Montreal steak spice on the beef.

Add kernel corn and beef to soup.  Simmer another half hour.

Quality control is important.  Taste your soup during the last half hour.  If required add salt or soya sauce.  Sometimes I toss in a tablespoon or so of Worcestershire sauce.  This time I added one package of onion soup mix.

Allow jars to cool completely before storing in fridge.  Soup should be consumed within one week.

This soup freezes well, when freezing soup I use plastic containers rather than glass jars.

I always make big batches of soup to give away to friends. Homemade soup has no medicinal value but it makes people feel better. 

Watching TV with Lily

When Lily is cold she drags her blanket upstairs to be covered up.  I always leave her head sticking out when I cover her, this time she pulled her head under the blanket, leaving only her nose sticking out.  She was snoring!  I think she finds my choice of programs boring.

November FMQ Challenge - Spirals

This month's teacher is Sarah Vedeler.  Her tutorial explains and illustrates in detail how to quilt lovely spirals.  I printed off the practice sheets from the tutorial and drew out about six pages of one and two inch spirals.  Then I practiced random spirals on a quilt sandwich without a marked grid.

     This was quilted on a Husqvarna Lily 555

The pink and blue sprials were sewn with Marathon 100% polyester trilobal embroidery thread.

The green thread is 100% Polyester variegated embroidery thread by Paradise Dream.

 Back side.

Then I moved on to my free motion quilting sample quilt.  I marked lines alternating one and two inches horizontally on the rectangle with a green sewline cermanic pencil.

My sample quilt is small, so it was relatively easy to free motion quilt with the smaller harp space on the Husqvarna.

Back side 

 I like this motif and will use it on my quilts.  

Husqvarna Lily 555 - new to me sewing machine

Look at my new toy!  Manufactured in Sweden in the late 1990s. This machine has 120 stitches on six menus, including three uppercase fonts.

Operating instructions, tension settings, feet selection are easy to follow.

Simple snap on feet.  The manual is available for free downland from Husqvarna.

  Lily is an excellent machine for free motion quilting. 

Regardless of thread choice, she sews beautiful, precise stitches and purrs like a kitten.

November's free motion challenge will be quilted with this beauty.

Lily's script font in navy blue.

 Little blue butterflies and fmq spirals.

Backside of spirals, butterflies and my name.  Pretty sure I'm in love!  It is just wonderful to operate.  How I wish the harp was larger, as that is really the only flaw I see with the Husqvarna Lily  555.  Happy stitching all.