BEEF STEW WITH PEARL BARLEY

I've seen kidney patients question the use of barley and the dieticians answer was as long as it's pearl barley it's okay for us.

So I tried this last night and ended up throwing it out. It might be really good for people who like barley, I just don't happen to be one of those people. Also I can't eat onions or garlic which really does flavour things.

I made a beef/barley soup not too long ago. The recipe said to add a Tbsp of Balsamic Vinegar. It did give a nice "tang" to the soup but, again, it wasn't something I'd eat a lot of, mostly because I don't like barley.

I do know one thing I did wrong. I only bought half the required amount of beef. Having recipes in lbs and having to shop in kgs drives me nuts! So if I need pounds or oz of something I usually write the amounts down in metric before I shop. Didn't do that this time. Canada changed to metric eons ago but I've never been able to think that way.  My kids will say something is 50 metres away. Well, that could be 50 feet or 50 miles, I dunno. The recipe also says to add 2 quarts of water which threw me. I AM used to litres now strangely enough. So I may have put too much water in too. But is a quart a litre? I think so.

Anyway, if you want to try out this stew you can find the recipe on DaVita

Now here is a great link for you "Demystifying Kidney Disease for the Average Joe"  

It's a blog written by a doctor that I came across. I don't know this doctor but his descriptions are in plain english and that's good.