Review and Giveaway: Tropical Traditions Organic Hulled Barley

It is undoubtedly winter. I don't know about where you are but right now it is about 20*, there is snow on the ground and a storm is on its way.

Winter.

To me winter calls for comfort food. Stews and soups; hearty fare.

So when Tropical Traditions offered me the chance to try their Organic Hulled Barley my first thought was vegetable soup! With barley of course!

First though I needed to make me some stock. I love having my own stock on hand. I can control what goes into it and I have it available whenever I get in the mood for soup!

First I took some meat bones and roasted them in the oven.

While they were roasting I put some chopped onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil in my stock pot to soften.

Then in went the meat bones and lots of water.

After this all came to a simmer I added more onion (one that I had just cut in half) a head of garlic also cut in half, some carrots and some celery. The camera battery died mid cooking so I am sorry to say I have no photos for this part.  I also added a couple of bay leaves and salt and pepper.

Once it was ready I took what I needed to make the soup and I canned the rest for future use.
To make the soup I added a split of red wine to the simmering stock plus some of our homegrown vegetables; green beans, corn and cauliflower and a can of organic fire roasted tomatoes.

When this all got to a low boil I added in a cup of the beautiful Tropical Traditions barley.

I know that's a half cut but I changed my mind after I had it measured out.

It cooked for about an hour and the barley was ready to eat. It added such a rich flavor to the soup. I will admit that I adore barley and plan to make a barley "risotto" soon. It makes an excellent side dish and is very high in fiber.

The soup was delicious and like most soups even better the next day. I served it with some whole wheat baking powder biscuits and it was a perfect winter dinner.

You can find some yummy barley recipes from Tropical Traditions HERE.

Thanks to Tropical Traditions one lucky reader will get to win a bag of Organic Hulled Barley!


How do you win? It's easy!\
But first some rules:

US only
No PO Boxes
Must be 18yrs old or older

MANDATORY ENTRY:

Sign up for the Tropical Traditions newsletter. Be sure to leave me your email address so I can contact you if you win.

EXTRA ENTRIES:

1. Like Tropical Traditions on Facebook
2. Follow me on twitter and tweet about the giveaway(one per day) - #Win Organic Hulled Barley from @TropTraditions and @BrokenTeepee @ http://tinyurl.com/4uv6f37 #giveaway

3. Become a fan of Broken Teepee on Facebook

4. Share the giveaway using the share buttons at the end of the post - 1 entry for each share. Leave a separate comment for each

5. Follow my blog publicly - if you already do, thank you!

6. Follow @TropTraditions on Twitter

7. Tell me something else you would like to try from Tropical Traditions

SEE THE EXTRA ENTRIES PAGE FOR ADDITIONAL WAYS TO ENTER.

All entries need to be in by 9PM MST on January 24th when I will go to Random.org to choose the winner. He/she will have 48hrs. to respond or I will choose a new winner.

Good luck everyone.

Disclosure:  I received product gratis from Tropical Traditions. Any opinions expressed are my honest opinions and were not impacted by my receipt of the free product. I received no monetary compensation for this post.