Barley’s a pretty versatile whole grain food, and a healthy ingredient in soups, stews, casseroles, salads and stir-fry, besides eating it as a hot cereal, or using it as a baking ingredient for cookies, muffins and breads.

Pearl barley makes a great addition to soup. If you’ve ever eaten Campbell’s Vegetable Beef Soup, you’ve eaten some of those little white balls. You can make your own version at home, and it’s really not that hard. Just chunk all the ingredients in a crockpot, let it simmer, and there you have it! Make a big batch, and freeze the leftovers.

While looking for other recipes, I came across this recipe at Kalyn’s Kitchen:

Barley with Dried and Fresh Mushrooms

Adapted by Kaylyn from “The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman” cookbook

5 ounces (or more) dried porcini mushrooms
8 ounces sliced white or portabella mushrooms
1 1/2 cups Pearled Barley
(not instant)
3 cups chicken stock or canned chicken broth
1 cup mushroom soaking liquid, reduced to 1/2 cup
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. onion powder
2 T butter
2 T extra virgin olive oil

Put dried porcini on cutting board and coarsely chop with chef’s knife, then place them in bowl and pour 1 cup boiling water over. Let stand 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, strain mushrooms (a coffee filter or a piece of cheesecloth would work for this) catching liquid. Boil mushroom liquid to reduce to 1/2 cup.

Heat 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil in dutch oven type pan. Add barley and saute 3-5 minutes, until barley is slightly toasted and well coated with oil. Add stock, reduced mushroom juice, thyme, and onion powder, bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer until all liquid is absorbed and barley is tender, about 30-35 minutes. Add more liquid and cook longer if needed to get the barley to the degree of tenderness you want.

When barley is tender and all liquid is absorbed, turn off heat. In very large deep frying pan, heat remaining butter and olive oil. Saute fresh mushrooms 3-5 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated and mushrooms are softened. Add porcini mushrooms and saute 2-3 minutes more, then stir in barley and heat through. Serve hot, garnished with fresh chopped parsley.

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I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but hope to soon.  If you try it out, let me know how you like it!

For more recipes, check out the Barley Foods website, or do a Google search.

Post from: Health Food Made Easy

Ways to Use Barley

Healthy Barley

If you’re looking for health food in a grain, barley qualifies. It looks a lot like wheat berries, and has a rich nutlike flavor with an appealing, chewy, pasta-like consistency. It’s a very good source of fiber and selenium, and also has a lot of phosphorus, copper and manganese.

The fiber in barley is good for lowering cholesterol and it also provides insoluble fibers to feed the friendly bacteria in the digestive tract. It helps decrease the risk of Type II Diabetes, prevent gallstones, and is protective against breast cancer.

I could fill pages with barley’s health attributes.

Sprouted barley is naturally high in maltose, a sugar that serves as the basis for malt syrup. When fermented, barley is used as an ingredient in beer and other alcoholic beverages.

If the outer husk is removed, the grain is termed Scotch milled or pot barley, while if the entire fibrous outer coat of the grain is removed, it’s called pearl barley.

Barley flour, owing to the fact that it contains so small a proportion of gluten, needs to be mixed with wheat flour for bread-making purposes. When added in small quantity to whole-wheat bread, it has a tendency to keep the loaf moist, and is thought by some to improve the flavor.

Also sold as flakes, similar to rolled oats, barley flakes can be made from hulled, hulless or pearl barley, so the nutrient content can be significantly different, depending on how much of the whole grain was used.

You can find barley in some regular grocery stores, as well as health food stores.  It’s also available on-line, with Bob’s Red Mill Barley, Pearled and many other types of barley products.

It’s a great health food to add to your diet, worthy of the Superfoods List!

Post from: Health Food Made Easy

Barley, Health Food in a Grain