Chicken and Vegetable Barley Soup

I used to know a guy who ground his teeth so loud in his sleep, that it woke him up, and all his teeth, including his canines, were smooth, and flat on the bottom.  I don’t grind my teeth.  I have perfect little points in all the right places, but I clench, which I guess is almost as bad. Sometimes, when I was younger and would go out partying, I’d wake up the next morning, and my jaws would be so sore I could barely brush my teeth. Because I clench. I also clench when I’m stressed or nervous or irritated. Since I haven’t been trashed in, oh, years, I’m going with stress this time.  

You see, I have this really awful pain in my jaw.  It started about a week ago, and has gotten progressively worse every day, until this morning when I got out of bed and couldn’t even yawn, and enjoy my pre-dawn stretch on the back patio while waiting on the dogs. 

I skipped breakfast, and powered through my lunch, which shouldn’t have been hard to do as it was only a salad, with cubed roast beef in it. It was excruciating though, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t even really enjoy my salad, and I love my salad.  Seriously, sometimes a really good salad is the best part of my day. This was one of those salads.  

After that I called the dentist and made an appointment.

Due to my predicament, I planned a hearty soup for my dinner: Chicken and Vegetable Barley.  In sticking with my ‘try new things’ spree, this soup had parsnips in it, and if you can believe it, I’d never before eaten barley either. I’ve had it out on my pantry shelf forever meaning to do something with it, but the time was never right.  

I didn’t get to enjoy this soup nearly as much as I could have, because it was chunky with bits of mushrooms and potatoes, and of course chicken, but you better believe I’ll be making this again.  

I’m not sure what the dentist is going to say, but as of right now I can’t even bite down, much less clench.   And seriously, I need to eat.