Instant Pot Soup

The barley will determine the cooking time more than the meat, especially if the meat was cut small. But cooking times for soup can range all over the place - as low as 20 minutes if using pressure, a couple of hours it using a slow mode. And ingredients can vary a lot - you need the liquid (water, stock, etc), some sort of starch (usually) such as the barley, interesting ingredients like the mushrooms, other vegetables for flavoring, herbs/spices, and salt. In a sense soup is just enhanced salted water :)

Mushroom & Barley soup VEGAN
1 cup barley
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 (16 oz) package of white button mushrooms, sliced
3 (15 ounce) cans low sodium vegetable broth
1 cup water
2 bay leaves
1/4 Teaspoon of ZeroHeat Spice
2 tablespoons fresh thyme, minced
Salt to taste

In a medium pan, bring 4 cups of water and the 1 cup of barley to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 30-40 minutes, or until the barley is soft. You can make this the night before.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Cook until soft. Add the carrots and celery and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until they are soft. Add the vegetable broth, water, bay leaves, and fresh thyme and 1/4 teaspoon of ZeroHeat Spice. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir in the cooked barley and cook for 15 minutes or so.

The ZeroHeat Spice gives very rich aroma/flavor while cooking. Remove the bay leaves. before serving. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.
I like to garnish with fresh cilantro .

If you use Instant Pot and cook under pressure, the cooking time under pressure for about 20-30 should be fine. I like slow cooking as the Aroma is very appetizing.

A little variation to above recipe, sometimes I put whole lentils or split lentils 1/2 cup and make the Mushroom, Barley & Lentil vegan soup.

The ZeroHeat spice is very versatile and my hubby has also become a fan. Unfortunately, it is only available on ebay, the link below.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/392192895762?...

Wish you a very Happy & Healthy New Year !

This is my go-to recipe, from Mark Bittman:

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/16/di...

I've made it dozens of times and it's awesome. Note that if you store the leftovers, the barley will continue to absorb liquid, so you'll need to add more stock or water.

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms (about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 pound shiitake or button mushrooms, stemmed and roughly chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
1 cup pearl barley
Salt and pepper
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon soy sauce.
½ cup dill

1. Soak porcini in 3 cups very hot water.
2. Put olive oil in a medium saucepan and turn heat to high. Add shiitakes and carrots and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown (5-7 minutes).
3. Remove the porcini from their soaking liquid, and reserve liquid. Chop porcini roughly, discarding any hard bits. Strain liquid through a paper towel to remove grit.
4. Add barley to the pot and cook, stirring frequently, until it begins to brown (2 minutes); sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.
5. Add porcini to pot and cook, stirring, for about a minute.
6. Add bay leaf, mushroom soaking water and 3 cups additional water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer; cover and cook 30 minutes. Add soy sauce and dill.

Yield: 4 servings.

Thank you all for the helpful hints and recipes.
Kelly, I had never heard of Zeroheat, so thank you for alerting me to it. Your recipe looks very good.
Small h, I am a fan of Bittman, and this recipe seems easy enough, I guess I'll set the Instan Pot to 20 minutes, as Paulj suggests, and see what happens!!
Happy and Healthy New Year to all.