Truth: I’ve always preferred baking over cooking. It could be that those warm-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies rival the taste of, well, even a seared grassfed beef steak. But to me, it’s also about the wizardry.
When my family comes home and banana muffins that weren’t there this morning are sitting on the counter, it feels like I conjured them out of thin air. Whereas when I roast a chicken, no one is surprised that the raw chicken that was in the fridge is now a roasted chicken on the table.
Being an adult, however, I rarely get to choose between making dinner or making cookies. Cooking becomes a necessity and baking something I can do for fun.
Soup may be the exception, however. These chilly days have us enjoying our fair share of soup. Such as sausage barley soup from this recipe. Modified for what I had on hand, that is.
The wizardry of creating soup started a while back, when I pulled a few neglected packs of beef soup bones from the depths of the freezer and made stock. (Remember when I did that? You did, too, right?)
The vegetables appeared from the recesses of the fridge drawer. I pretty much always have onions, carrots, and celery on hand and they tend to keep pretty well. I chopped those up (forgot the garlic), sautéed them in a bit of leftover bacon grease, and poured in the broth.
I threw in some leftover beef I had. You may have some from your bones if you’re just making stock for the soup. Or maybe it’s leftover roast. It will work. I chopped the beef up until it was the size I’d be happy to find at the end of my soup spoon and added it.
In went the barley (farm fresh, oh, a year or so ago from a farmer friend of mine) and the frozen spinach. Per a suggestion on the recipe, I threw in a can of tomatoes.
Ta da! Soup! Where did that come from?
And to satisfy the baker in me, we served the soup with homemade pretzels. Sometimes you can have it all. 
Mmm! Such good-looking soup – and that pretzel!