Savory Barley Bowl

And a shortcut to cook it!

Okay, I have only used barley as an addition to soups and stews. Throw a handful into the crockpot with all the other ingredients and it’s good to go. I’d never cooked it all alone until this one time, at band camp— no wait, it was in the kitchen— I accidentally used barely in the rice cooker instead of brown rice. They were in nearly identical packaging, and my eyesight is getting pretty dicey. It came out pretty good, surprising me, but the barley wasn’t quite done, and I had to add more broth and simmer it on the stove top.

I’ve since fixed that issue, and now I can cook perfect barley in the rice cooker. It was just a matter of realizing barley takes more liquid than rice. I tried it again and it worked great,

but now I had to figure out what to do with it once I’d cooked it.

Here’s what I did with it, and it came out pretty darn tasty.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup “pearled” or “pearl” barley

• 3 cups veggie or mushroom broth

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1 teaspoon onion powder

• 1 tablespoon reduced sodium tamari

• 1 cup diced yellow onion (about 1 big onion)

• 1 cup diced celery (about 4 stalks)

• 6 to 8 ounces of button mushrooms, diced

• 1 can diced tomatoes or diced tomatoes with mild green chiles

• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed.

• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast, optional

METHOD

Put 1 cup barley, rinsed, 3 cups broth, the garlic powder, the onion powder, and the tamari into the rice cooker. Set it for brown rice, and turn it on.

While the barley cooks, heat a frying pan until a drop of water sizzles when you drip it in. At that point, add the onions, celery and mushrooms to the pan. Cook, stirring, until the veggies start sticking to the pan, at which point you should add a splash of broth to deglaze. Stir frequently and continue cooking, adding a bit of broth as needed to keep from sticking, until the veggies are fork tender.

Add the tomatoes, beans, and nutritional yeast, and stir, bringing it to a simmer.

Finally, stir in the cooked barley. You’ll have three cups of it, so don’t use all of it! Add about half the cooked barley, stirring and simmering.

The longer it stands before dinner, the tastier it’ll be!

Store the leftover barley in the fridge, covered, for a second meal ingredient. With the grains, I always cook twice what I need, so I had another batch for a second meal. It’ll keep several days.

PICTURED

I baked a pre-made, store baguette, and cooked some carrots and broccolini to go with it. I cooked the carrots in boiling water in a small pot, put a steam basket on top of the same pot, and put the broccolini in there to steam it while the carrots cooked. Worked beautifully.

VARIETY

It can’t be brown rice every time I want a whole grain with a meal. Variety is the key to good health on a whole food, all-plant diet, after all.

So use other whole grains as often as possible.

• Ezekiel brand breads, wraps, and English muffins

• Wild rice

• Old fashioned or steel cut oats

• Quinoa

• Whole grain macaroni

• Whole grain spaghetti

• Whole grain rotini

• Whole grain shells

• Pearl barley

• Sorghum

• Grits

• Whole grain flours for baking, including whole grain GF flours

• Millet

• Spelt

You have to get brave and experiment with new things, and it usually takes a few tries to get them right. You’re on the culinary health adventure of a lifetime!

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Escape into a world of…
ROMANTASY