Friday, July 16, 2010

Barley Water Leftovers

I did finally get around to making something with the leftover barley from the barley water recipe. I was trying to use up the scraps in my fridge that were starting to look sad, so I chopped up maybe 5 stalks of celery and all the salvageable bits of a bunch of green onions. I stirred that in with the barley and added some cut up hard boiled eggs and some small cubed cheddar.

Can you see where this is going yet?

A bit of vinegar, miracle whip, s&p, and paprika and I had a macaroni salad with barley instead of pasta which was nicely vegetable heavy. We added some herbs from our little garden (parsley and tarragon - too licorice-y for my liking.) The whole thing went a long way, too. Individually it would have served my husband and I for lunch, but there was something about it all stirred up that it took care of lunch and most of dinner.

Barley as a blank slate base - it worked just as well as I'd hoped it would. I'd provide a recipe, but it really was just a case of throwing a bunch of things into a bowl and hoping it worked. If I had to approximate it...

~2 cups cooked barley, cooled
~2 cups mixed raw veggies, chopped to a size close to the barley
~2 oz cheddar cheese, cubed (I used medium)
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped to your liking

toss all this together and add:
a few globs of miracle whip, to taste
maybe 1/4 tsp vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
a handful of fresh herbs of your choice, chopped

Stir it all in and serve either now or later. Refrigerate any uneaten portions promptly.

Gourmet, no?

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