Another Crazy Cold May Day

It's mid May and I'm still going to sleep covered under 2 winter comforters! If warmer weather in the form of consistent mid-60s degrees and lower wind factor arrives and stays, I promise not to make fun of all those girls who strip down, or up really, to their butt cheeks the second the thermometer goes north of 65 degrees F! I'm as much a fan of skinny jeans and other fashionable full cover-ups, but being under wraps for so long I'm actually getting pasty looking stems by even East Asian standards! 

Luckily, true to character, I always find the silver lining in every cloud. In these stormy cloud days, looking forward in the morning to a steaming cup of rich fragrant Vietnamese coffee blended with sweet dense condense milk, a creamy saucer of vanilla cornmeal grits, a piping hot bowl of potato barley soup,....ahhhh!

Potato Barley Soup 

Quick and easy I promise!  Remember I suggested to save any raw shrimp shells left from any shrimp dish you made by freezing them for stock at a later time? Here is one way to use those shells. That goes for liquid used to boil veggies in, i.e broccoli, potato, pumpkin.

Serves 1 

Ingredients

   8-10 shrimp shells
   1 cup water or enough to cover the shrimp shells
   2 cups of any frozen leftover vegetable boiling liquid- I had some potato stock in my freezer; if unavailable, water is fine
   1 red potato or any other potato of your preference, yielding approx 1 1/2 cups- diced
   1/2 cup barley- soak in hot water for at least 5 minutes
   1 garlic clove- mashed or roughly chopped
   1 egg
   3/4 tbsp fish sauce
   dash black pepper, optional

1.    In a saucepan, boil the shrimp shells in water for a few minutes. 
2.    Strain the shells, squeezing out all the juice. Return the stock back into the saucepan and discard the shells.
3.    Add the frozen potato stock (remember I made this for breakfast, there was no thawing time), garlic, and barley.
4.    Cook till barley is soft but not quite completely cooked, about 5 minutes. 
5.    Add the potatoes.
6.    Cook till potatoes soft, additional 2-3 minutes.   
7.    Season with fish sauce. 
8.    Crack the egg in. Gently ladle it around. 
9.    Add pepper.
10. Turn of heat, eat directly from saucepan (as I usually do when I needn't photograph the dish)  or pour into bowl as more civilized people may tend to do!

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