Stew with BARLEY

We have been buying a lot of vegetables from the farmer's market. Eating local has a lot of benefits that I really like to talk about.
-You eat fresh stuff, so it tastes better, nutrients have less time to degrade
-You keep your money local, which helps the local economy - a BIG deal in Michigan
- You know who is bringing you your food. This means you know if they use pesticide, what kind, how much, GMO, hormones, or WHATEVER, but you KNOW so you can decide what is okay.
- This also means it's generally a smaller farm and can take the time to have correct sanitation practices, so food borne illness can be lower
- It is a really cool environment to walk through!

Anyway, fall vegetables are great! But using them in a variety of ways can be tough. So we made a stew, that is very similar to our casserole, except instead of baking it, we put it in the crock pot for 3-4 hours. We have played with the stew a lot more than the casserole in an effort to make the two dishes different, as well as change the flavor. We use potatoes, green beans, carrots, thyme, salt, pepper, vegetable broth, and onions each time. We've play around with cream of mushroom soup, yogurt, and a barley to make it thick and different. The barley was a success, however, we *may* have overdone it. The instructions were for using 1 cup of barley, and BOY did that fill up the pot! In the left overs the barley soaked up so much broth that there wasn't any left! So, lesson with barley: start small.

Other than that, this is another recipe we have toyed with so we don't have a specific perfect one yet!