Chicken, Barley and Spinach Stew

Warm up with a steaming, hot bowl of Chicken, Barley and Spinach Stew

Cook's Notes:
This recipe is filled with good-for-you vegetables and is a cross between a thick soup and stew. Advance prep makes the dish assembly go faster. Chop veggies ahead and use a rotisserie chicken. Since rotisserie chicken has a lot of seasoning I did not add any extra salt and pepper (personal preference). Optional addition crumbled bacon bits served on top of stew. Recipe adapted from Southern Living September 2017 and serves four.
Ingredients:

• 3 cups shredded cooked chicken
• 4 slices of bacon
• 1 cup each diced sweet onion, carrots, celery
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp. parsley flakes
• 1/2 tsp. herbes de Provence
• 3/4 cup apple cider
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
• 4 cup chicken broth, low sodium
• 3/4 cup uncooked quick-cooking barley
• 1/2 small bag of baby spinach,stems removed, torn leaves

Directions:

• Cook bacon, drain on a paper towel, crumble and set aside. 
• In a soup pot add 1 TB. olive oil and 1 TB. bacon drippings if using bacon or increase olive oil by 1/2 tsp. 
• Heat to medium high and saute carrots, celery and onions 3 minutes, add in minced garlic saute 1 minute longer. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and sweat vegetables for 5 minutes.
• Uncover, add in spices, cider, water, mustard and broth. Whisk well and bring to a boil.  Add in barley and cook 15 minutes. 
• Add in spinach and stir until wilted about 3 minute. Serve with crumbled bacon on top. 
• To reheat the stew next day add in more broth or water if too thick.

  

Christmas Sparrow
by Billy Collins

The first thing I heard this morning
was a rapid flapping sound, soft, insistent—

wings against glass as it turned out
downstairs when I saw the small bird
rioting in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of glass into the spacious light.

Then a noise in the throat of the cat
who was hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap of a basement door,
and later released from the soft grip of teeth.

On a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a shirt and got it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.

But outside, when I uncupped my hands,
it burst into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.

For the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms as I wondered about
the hours it must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.

Christmas Sparrow by Billy Collins, from "Aimless Love" © Random House 2013.