barsotto??

Wednesday at lunch, I had to watch Jaime (from over at Burnt Toast) eat her wonderful smelling risotto while I had a sandwich. Now, I am not complaining one bit, because my sandwich was really awesome - I made it out of left over bbq chicken Bradley grilled up Monday night.

"Grilled up" is so southern. "We're out here on the porch grillin' up a whole heap of something". Please try and work that sentence into your repertoire at least once this week and I promise you it will make you feel better. That, and a new purse. You deserve it!

Anyway -

I set there smelling the yummy cheesy goodness as we discussed just how hard it is to find arborio rice where we live. You people just don't understand! I told her about my plans to make a sort of "orzo risotto" and we talked about that for a while. It didn't occur to me until later that I have a lot of barley I bought and never really knew what to do with.

Although there was that 6 month span where I was on a quest to make the perfect pot roast and put barley in the bottom of my dish and then poured red wine on top of it and everything else in there and we had purple barley. That was fun. But it didn't use the whole box.

So I searched "barley recipes" trying to find something that would use ingredients I already had. I was in luck when I stumbled across this recipe. It was good and nutty and cheesy.... I enjoyed it. Then Bradley dropped the bomb on me, "Is this oatmeal?". I couldn't eat it after that, and I have no idea why.

Barley Pilaf
adapted from a recipe found on cdkitchen.com

1 cup quick-cooking barley
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chicken broth & 1 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 – 2 tablespoons basil

In a large sauce pan cook barley in hot olive oil over medium heat about 10 minutes or until lightly toasted, stirring once a minute. Add onion and butter; cook until onion is tender. Add garlic and cook for about 2 minutes.

In a small sauce pan heat broth and milk. Slowly add 1/2 cup of the mix to barley mixture, stirring constantly. Continue to cook and stir over medium heat until liquid is absorbed. Add another 1/2 cup of the broth, stirring constantly. Continue to cook and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Add another 1/2 cup of the broth (repeat until all broth is used); cook and stir until liquid is all absorbed and the barley is tender.

Remove from heat. Stir in cheese; season to taste with salt and ground black pepper, sprinkle with basil.

~~~~~

Bradley reluctantly ate his, I couldn't finish mine, but guess who loved every bite??