Mushroom Barley Soup

My grandmother is the best cook I know.  Watch out Iron Chefs, this lady is it!  She cooks from the heart and taught me to do the same.  It's no surprise that there are no set recipes for her food, instead it's a pinch of this and a dollop of that.

Only recently have I started writing down what I put into my dishes and part of the reason for doing so is my grandma.  I would like to be able to share my creations with her.  While I would love to share my recipes with her in person the way she shared hers with me, it's a lot more difficult with us living a couple of states apart.  Next best thing I can do is try to write down what I make as exact as I can and walk her through it over the phone.

One day as we were talking, my grandma honored me by asking me for ideas for a soup that would be new to her routine.  Every once in a while I've been making a mushroom and barley soup and suggested that she try that.  Since I've only made the soup at the spur of the moment, I didn't have a recipe to pass on, just general idea of stuff that I put in it.  She asked me to write one down next time I make it, so here I am.

I started with the basics (mushrooms, barley, and soup mix beans) of what I've put into the soup every other time I've made it.  The rest was tougher since I haven't made this soup in a while and forgot what exactly I put in it.  I added some shallots into the mix, but still kept thinking that it needed more.

The only other ingredients that I could think of to put in the soup were celery and carrots.  I tossed those in, but as soon as everything started cooking and I was able to smell the soup coming together, I realized that I've never put those into the soup before now.  So the whole time it's cooking I was sitting on pins and needles and hoping that it would still turn out good.

The last thing to do was to season the soup.  Normally I would keep tossing different spices into the pot and tasting it until I had it just the way I wanted it to taste.  This time I had to be a lot more methodical and keep track of how much of what I would add.  In the end I ended up using 6 different spices.

The soup came out pretty good, but not perfect.  I ended up adding a little too much barley (fixed that in the written recipe).  Still not sure about the celery and carrots, but they definitely did not ruin the soup at all.  I hope my grandma will like this version enough to make it her own.