Hearty. Filling. Chunky. Thick.

A super duper easy and filling meal for Meatless Monday! Join the movement to cut out meat one day a week for the benefit of your own health and to help our planet too. And I add, your hip pocket.

Everyone has their favourite soup, and for a long time, mine was cream of mushroom. I'd never had mushroom soup any other way. But by the time it came to me cooking my own cream of mushroom soup, I was over it. These things happen. But I love mushrooms, and so I was determined to find another way. Only a few trials later, I hit the mushroom soup jackpot. This recipe is very hearty. In fact, you could easily call it a stew.

1 tablespoon or more of butter

1 onion, diced

500g mushrooms, sliced very thick

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup or 125ml dry sherry

2 fist sized potatoes, diced small

1/2 cup or 100g pearl barley

5 cups or 1.25L weak vegetable stock (be careful here, it is easy to overdo the salt. Remember there is already half a teaspoon of salt in the soup. Err on the side of caution as more salt can be added at the end if necessary)

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley stalks

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley leaves

Melt the butter in a pot on a medium to high heat.

Add the onion, mushrooms, salt, rosemary and garlic.

Fry together, straining off any liquid into the stock. The aim is to get as much flavour as possible into the mushrooms at this point, so fry for as long as it takes to get them golden brown.

Throw in the sherry, stand back and stir. It should hiss a lot.

When all the sherry has evaporated, add in all the other ingredients, saving the parsley leaves until later.

Simmer gently with the lid on for 30-40 minutes until the barley is tender.

Stir in the parsley leaves and serve.

Makes 4-5 bowls.

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More vegetarian cookbook goodies

Need help with conversions? Download this handy dandy pdf of cooking conversion charts for every cooking measuring system I could find. It should make your life easier.

Want to check out more vegetarian dinner recipes? They're all in the Table of Contents.

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