Chicken Barley Soup

This is the chicken soup recipe I make most often. It is simple and nutritious. We have come to prefer the barley to noodles because they have more chew to them. When I am using chicken breasts for other recipes, I will often have scraps from trimming. I cut those into small bite-size pieces for this soup and save them in the freezer for later. I will also often cut up the vegetables the night before. Making the soup then becomes a simple matter of adding things to the pot as needed, and occasionally stirring.