Tomato sausage barley soup (vegetarian)

Winter is the time for warming stews.  One of my favourite cold weather comfort foods is barley.  After all barley is one of the joys of Scottish stews.  It soft and malty like a familiar warm blanket.  We also love bangers and mash on these chilly days.  So this cosy recipe for Italian sausage and barley soup in a supermarket magazine caught my eye.

 I found it when I was sorting out old magazine when we packed up the house to be painted.  I pulled it out and put the magazine in a pile for recycling.  Most of my recipes I use these days are online but I do love cooking with the recipe on paper with a nice photo.  I was very glad I had hung onto it during the  packing upheaval once I made it.  Delicious!

The Coles recipe called for pork sausages but I used vegetarian sausages.  It is a recipe that is easy to make vegetarian.  This is not quite a like for like substitution.  Given that is decades since I have cooked with meat, I am not quite clear how much fat and flavour in the meat sausages I am replacing with vegetarian.  

Of course I made some changes.  The Coles recipe had the pork sausage frying without any oil but the Veggie Delites sausages that we use need oil when frying.  I was surprised that the only seasoning was after they are cooked.  (And this was just when I checked again online.  On paper I could not see any reference to seasoning and was scratching my head.)  I cooked the stew with salt and pepper as well as a few other flavours such as Worcester sauce, vinegar and honey.  (Other sweeteners can be used if you want it vegan.)  Again, I was unsure if less seasoning was needed for the pork sausages.  No matter!  I know what I like.

The stew was a bit thin so I added some diced potato which worked really well.  Sylvia added some pasta she had cooked earlier.  We both loved it,  Sylvia has already asked if I can make it again next week.  I was very happy to have it for lunch at work the next day.  The paper copy might already have been recycled but like so many recipes today, it is also online for us to return to it again and again.

More recipes with barley on Green Gourmet Giraffe blog:
Bean, barley and tomato stew (v)
Barley, lentil and pumpkin minestrone (v)
Honeyed beer and barley stew 
Scotch broth.with lentils and barley (v)
Scottish vegetable and barley soup (v)

Tomato sausage barley soup
Adapted from Coles Magazine
Serves 4

• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• 6 vegetarian sausages
• 1 onion, finely chopped
  
• 1 carrot, peeled, finely chopped
• 3 celery sticks, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup (140g) pearl barley
• 400g tin of diced tomatoes
• 5 cups water
  
• 2 medium potatoes, diced 
• 3 tbsp tomato paste 
• 1-3 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce 
• 1 tsp honey 
• 1 tsp dried Italian herbs
• 1 tsp salt, or to taste
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  

Fry sausages in oil for 5-10 minutes over medium heat in a stockpot.  (I had expected them to brown.  They didn't but were still good.)  Add onion, celery and carrot and fry another 5 minutes.  Stir in remaining ingredients and taste to check seasoning.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 30-45 minutes with lid on until the barley is soft.

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