Instant Pot Barley Soup with Miso
A soup recipe for lingering chilly Spring days + the pleasures of an evening walk
Hi!
How has your week been? We’ve been taking advantage of more light in the evening with short walks after dinner. Last night, Josie dribbled her new obsession, a basketball ball, during the entire walk thump, thump, thumping her way through the neighborhood.
We passed a man who was out working in his yard who smiled and said, “I love that sound, there’s nothing better!”
I was relieved that he used the thumping basketball as a point of connection, not contention, and our brief conversation continued to the gorgeous orange poppies and wildflowers another neighbor had planted across the street.
Our walks have me thinking about the Italian ritual of taking an evening walk, or passeggiata. I don’t know if this tradition still widely exists in modern Italian life, but I love the idea of families and single people and older folks strolling through their towns and cities in the evening.
It’s no wonder that America has an loneliness epidemic when many of us spend hours after dinner staring at a computer or TV, alone in our houses. It’s not always easy to get yourself moving after dinner, but I promise you won’t regret it. Our walk the other night only took about 20 minutes and we were all in a better mood afterwards.
Miso Month!
Throughout April I’ve been sharing recipes that use miso as an ingredient. If you decided to buy a container of miso paste and cook along this month, great! Or, maybe one day you’ll find yourself with a container of miso in the back of your fridge and now you have plenty recipes that will use it up.
Today we’re finishing up with a recipe that shows how whisking a tablespoon or two of miso paste into soup or stew can add more flavor.
This Week’s Recipe: Instant Pot Mushroom Barley Soup with Miso
If you find yourself enduring a windy spring day when you really wish the weather would just hurry up and get warm already, then you need this cozy soup to get you through.
The pearl barley releases starch into the soup, giving the broth a thicker, smoother consistency. The flavor of the broth is enriched with soy sauce and miso paste, making this a really satisfying vegetarian soup. You can find the recipe for Instant Pot barley sopu with miso here.
Where to find Kitchen Skip Recipes: Most of the recipes I share can be found on my blog Kitchen Skip. You can also search the newsletter archives to search past newsletters. If you’re a paid subscriber, all of the bonus recipes can be found in the Substack recipe index.
Dinner Last Week
I’m always curious about what other families are eating. Aren’t you? Here’s what my crew ate last week.
Monday: I intended to make an easy dinner of salmon burgers and frozen French fries, but alas there were no salmon burgers at the grocery store. I ended up buying tilapia that I dredge in egg and flour and fried in hot skillet with butter and oil. This “fish and chips” dinner was enjoyed by all and actually not that hard to make.
Tuesday: I updated a recipe on my blog that marinates salmon in buttermilk, so I served buttermilk salmon salad for dinner with boiled potatoes. Buttermilk mellows the “fishy” flavor of salmon and gives salmon a moist, tender texture. The recipe adds fresh dill and parsley, green onion, vinegar and honey to the buttermilk for a flavorful marinade that also doubles as buttermilk-herb salad dressing. This salmon tastes best when served chilled.
Wednesday: I re-tested the rice bowls I made last week, this time using ground chicken instead of ground pork. This is a really easy dinner and also makes great lunch leftovers. I’ll be sharing this recipe with you soon!
Thursday: I tried Hetty Lui McKinnon’s weeknight spinach and ricotta lasagna from the New York Times and loved how quick and easy it is. It took me just 15 minutes to put the lasagna together. Definitely a keeper for weeknights! Here’s a link to the lasagna recipe if you have a NYTimes subscription (you might also be able to access the paper for free through your local library website).
Friday: We ate leftovers, a combination of lasagna, rice bowls and salad. There is almost nothing I like better than leftover lasagna!
Cookbooks
The recipes that really made me hungry in Cooking in Real Life by Lidey Heuck are the snacks and drinks found in the first chapter. Spicy Paloma punch, honey roasted cashews with a kick, homemade crackers, baked crab dip and “beach water,” an icy blend of coconut water, vodka and mint. Yes, please, to all of it!
Lidey Heuck began her culinary journey as an assistant to Ina Garten and her recipes share the same “simple but nice enough for company” vibe. The photo on the cover is spaghetti with sweet corn pesto, which I will definitely be making this summer. Her idea of “recipes for every day” is slightly fancier than what my kids will eat, but I did find quite a few recipes for dinner (saucy shrimp alla vodka) and sides (crispy smashed potatoes) that make this a cookbook worth checking out.
That’s it for this week! So far, we don’t have plans for the weekend. I think both Sorin and I are feeling a bit worn out and I’m glad we don’t have much on our schedule.
Hope you all have a relaxing weekend, let me know what you’re up to !
Jenny