Hot Dish Review

My second batch of barley has sparked new experiments as well as repeating the original ones that were so successful, like the breakfast barley with cinnamon, figs, and honey. I love barley’s toothesome quality and it keeps you full for hours!

This time I divided the one cup dry barley into five half-cup cooked servings (rather than four 3/4 cup servings), about 145 calories.

Whole foods has a curried wheatberry salad on their foodbar that I’ve always loved, so I decided to make my own version for lunch today with barley.

Here’s what I used:

1/2 cup cooked barley
1 carrot, chopped
1 scallion, chopped
1/1/2 tsp. olive oil
curry powder, to taste
cilantro
black pepper, to taste
dash of crushed red pepper

On Thursday I told my nutritionist that whenever I eat barley I pair it with vegetables or dried fruits. I automatically think of it as the main component of a meal to build around, rather than a protein.

Then on Friday, I made a total liar out of myself….I ordered grilled shrimp on a bed of greens to eat with my curried barley salad. Quite yummy! The salad was really very good, but something was missing…..

Over the weekend I was picking up some chana masala to pair with another serving of barley so I had the opportunity to look at the ingredient list on their curried wheatberry salad. Honey. That’s what was missing.

Also, my version had carrots instead of green peppers, but I did that on purpose.

Now that I’m on the barley kick, I will certainly make the curry salad again!