30-minute meals: Beef and barley soup

Not only is this soup nutritious it will warm you up from the inside out and leave you satisfied.

You will need:

• Two tablespoons vegetable oil.
• 500g sirloin steak, trimmed and cut into chunks.
• Three carrots, peeled and sliced.
• Two sticks celery, trimmed and sliced.
• Three parsnips, peeled and sliced.
• One medium onion, chopped.
• Two cubes of beef stock.
• Dried thyme.
• One cup quick-cook barley.
• Half a teaspoon salt.
• A quarter teaspoon pepper.

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What to do:

Heat oil in a large pot over high heat. Add beef and brown one minute. Turn and brown another minute, remove from the pot and place in a bowl.

Reduce heat and add carrots, celery, parsnips and onion, cook while stirring for five minutes. Dissolve the cubes in two cups of hot water and the dried thyme. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil.

Add barley and reduce heat to medium. Cook for 12 minutes then stir in beef and any accumulated juices, salt and pepper and cook for a further two minutes.

• Information obtained from www.allrecipes.com.