Hearty Bean & Barley Soup
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 large carrots - chopped
2 stalks celery - chopped
1 medium onion - chopped
3 1/2 cups of vegetable broth
1 can of kidney beans - drained and rinsed
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/4 cup of uncooked pearl barley
a small pack of chopped frozen spinach -one of those small boxes. thaw it out and let it drain
pepper and salt to taste
Heat up the oil in a 4 quart pan - saute up the onions, carrots, and celery until they are tender. Add the broth, beans, tomatoes, and barley. Heat this to a boil than reduce the heat to low. Let this cook until the barley is cooked. Stir in the spinach and season it to taste. Cook until spinach is done. Serve.
The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster
We had a problem at our house and was without power for 2 days. It surprisingly went well. I was pretty prepared. We opened all of the windows and let the light in! I got out my coffee percolator and a sterno burner! had some pretty good coffee. Made the kids some lunch on our 
! I had some worries about starting it up , but I went and got the guy across the street to come over and show me how to do it. The little stove was my hubbies thing. But, now I know how to do it. Fried the kids some chicken. Kids were alright without the power. The only thing that my son had a problem with was when his cell phone started to get low on energy. He ran to the Arby's down the road with a book and sat there reading and drinking a coke while it charged. I am really not sure why we don't have car chargers for our phones. It got really dark fast that first night. LOL. Little man loved using the 
. Said that we were camping. The next day he was getting bored without his Wii! We played outside, read, played chutes and ladders, and I made a hopscotch thing on the living room floor out of blue duct tape! It was fun! Luckily, our freezer wasn't full. So we had no problems with that. When the lights came back on evreyone was kind of sad. The only thing I didn't like was that it took forever for the water to boil in the percolator for the coffee. But, when it did start to boil the coffee didn't take too long to cook up!!
