Beef and Barley Soup

This has been a weird winter, even here in Southern Nevada.  Believe it or not, it gets cold here.  Usually.  Still, highs in the 50's are cold when you get used to 115 in the summertime.  Its a good enough excuse for me to make soup.  I love soup, in most of its many incarnations.  This is a simple soup that I can make in very little time.  I also have a tendency to use this as a leftover soup - I can clear out all sorts of leftover vegetables and no one complains.  I have three kids.  Lack of complaint is practically a ringing endorsement.

My secret for a soup that takes little time to come together is my pressure cooker.  I use regular stew meat from Costco, which usually takes a bit of cooking to become tender.  My pressure cooker lets me do it in about 30 minutes cooking time.  Here you go:

 - 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of cubed beef - I usually use stew meat.  I love cutting up blade steaks but I'm cheap.
 - 2 cans of beef consomme
 - chicken stock
 - 1 can beer
 - tomato paste
 - salt and pepper
 - carrots
 - green beans - I'm very, very flexible with the vegetables, I thought about throwing some kale in this batch but didn't.
 - vegetable oil
 - caramelized onions - I make these myself and I promise to document it the next time I do it.  I would say 1 diced onion should do it.
- 1 cup pearl barley

Quick note about my pressure cooker.  I love my pressure cooker.  I started out with a smaller one when I only had one child.  The one that I currently have was my grandmother's.  She got it for her wedding back in 1953.  I know there are newer ones, with better safety features but I'm emotionally attached to mine.

I heat the pressure cooker, add cold oil then brown the beef that I have seasoned with salt and pepper.  I literally just learned that if you use a hot pan and cold oil stuff doesn't stick.  I had no idea.

While the meat is browning, I chop up the vegetables.  I did actually take a picture of this but can't get the damn thing to rotate.  I cut the fresh green beans in 2" pieces and the the carrots in chunks.  I don't like to do them too small or they turn to mush.

The browning takes a couple of batches but you get a pan that looks like this:

Remove the beef to a bowl.  Add the onions and tomato paste.  If you are using the raw onion, cook the onion until softened.

Add one of the cans of consomme and deglaze the pan.  Return the meat and any accumulated juices, the carrots and the remaining can of consomme.  Add the barley to the pan:

Finally add the can of beer.  My poor neighbor, every time I make this, I ended running over and grabbing a beer.  Of all the forms of alcohol, I just am not a fan of beer.  This is one of the many reasons why Pam always gets soup...

Put on the lid and let the pressure cooker heat until the pressure is high enough.  On my model, the weight on the top starts jiggling.

Once the pressure is up, I drop the temperature down to low and set the timer for 25 minutes.  Let the pressure cooker rest for 15 minutes or so, until you can open the cooker.  It should look like this:

The meat should fall apart like this:

Add the green beans and about 2 cups of chicken broth.  The barley absorbs a lot of the consomme when it cooks and you need something less salty to add anyways.  Sounds weird but the chicken broth works perfectly.  Bring it to a boil just long enough to cook the green beans, about 5 minutes.

Yummy deliciousness: