My Recipe Binder

I love clipping and saving recipes from Cooking Light, Paula Deen, Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee (my three favorites!) but I don't like to store piles of magazines filled with the recipes I don't want. So I started this recipe binder using page protectors.  I put a sheet of white paper inside each page protector and then either glue clipped recipes to the sheet, or slip them in.  They stay in place really well with the white paper.  I also have dividers in the binder so the recipes can be organized by type of dish.

Then whenever I need a recipe, I pull it's page out of the binder so I can have it near me while I'm cooking without the entire binder taking up space on the kitchen counter.

Beef Barley Soup

This is one of the best things I have cooked in a long time.  It was delicious!  I clipped it from Cooking Light a few years ago, put it in my recipe binder, but never gave it a second look.  The other day I was browsing recipes and noticed that I already had most of the ingredients, except for the beef and the barley - so I tried it and I'm so glad I did!



3/4 lb boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrot
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced celery
2/3 cup chopped onion
1 (8-ounce) package presliced mushrooms
4 cups beef broth
1 bay leaf
2/3 cup uncooked pearl barley
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Heat a Dutch oven or large soup pot over medium high heat.  Coat pan with cooking spray.  Add beef to pan; cook 4 minutes or until browned, stirring frequently.  Remove beef from pan.  Add carrot, celery, onion, and mushrooms to pan; cook 6 minutes, or until liquid almost evaporates.  Add beef, beef broth, and bay leaf.  Bring to a simmer over medium high heat.  Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 1/2 hours or until beef is tender, stirring occasionally.  Stir in pearl barley; cover and simmer 30 minutes or until pearl barley is tender.  Stir in salt and pepper.  Discard bay leaf. 

*The smallest cut of roast I could find was 1 1/2 lbs, so I doubled the recipe.  It took about 20 minutes, rather than 6 minutes, for the liquid to evaporate with the vegetables.