Recipe: Chicken, Vegie and Barley Soup

Ingredients:

• 2tbs olive oil
• 1 medium brown onion
• 2tbs tomato paste
• 1tbs fresh thyme leaves
• ¾ cup pearl barley#
• 2L vegetable stock
• 1 chicken breast fillet
• Salt and pepper
• Paprika*
• 1 medium potato
• 1 carrot
• ½ frozen peas
• ½ pkt baby spinach

Method:

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over high heat and add sliced onion. Cook for 2-3 mins until starting to soften. 
2. Add stock, tomato paste, pearl barley and thyme. Bring to the boil, then cover and reduce heat to low-medium heat. Simmer for 30mins.
3. While soup is simmering, lie the chicken breast flat and slice horizontally into two thinner halves. Season each side with salt, pepper and paprika.
4. Heat oil in a frypan over high heat and sear the chicken on both sides for 3-4mins or until brown and cooked through.
5. Add potato and carrot to soup and simmer for further 10mins, until tender.
6. Roughly pull apart/shred chicken and add to soup with, peas and spinach.
7. Stir, cover and remove from heat.

For extra delicious-ness serve with cheesy toasted pita bread:

1. Cut pita bread in half and fill each with ¼ cup grated cheese
2. Toast in toastie machine and serve

Notes:

# We used soup mix, which has a mix of pearl barley and green and yellow split peas. It is usually easy to find – even Aldi sells it.
* Don’t worry too much about paprika if you can’t be bothered, it will still be tasty. If you’d like a slightly different flavour, sprinkle some curry powder on instead or whichever spice takes your fancy. This recipe is adapted from ‘Chicken and barley soup with cheesy flatbread’ from Taste.com for a bigger vegie fix. Find the original recipe at http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/35167/chicken+and+barley+soup+with+cheesy+flatbreads