Barley Bake

Barley bake, fresh green beans, cabbage, mashed potatoes and bread.

One of my favorite soups before becoming plant based was beef barley soup.  I loved the chewy barley in the soup.  I will eventually get a soup worked out that uses barley, but until then I have enjoyed making this barley bake dish.

This dish takes quite awhile in the oven, but it is hands off time once it's in the oven, so that makes it no problem for me. 


When the dish is finished, the barley should still be quite chewy.  That is the characteristic that I enjoy so much with this dish.   This dish is good served hot or at room temperature, which makes it a good dish to travel with.  The last time I made this, I used both the pine nuts and the walnuts, and I really liked it that way.  Pine nuts are crazy expensive, so I also would not hesitate to use only walnuts in it.  We included this dish in our Easter meal. 


BARLEY BAKE

¼ cup vegetable broth, approximate
1 medium onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 cup mushrooms, diced
2 green onions, sliced thin
1 cup uncooked pearl barley
½ cup pine nuts and/or 1/2 cup walnuts
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp pepper
4 cups vegetable broth

 Preheat oven to 350. 

 In a large skillet, heat 2 Tbsp. vegetable broth.  Add onion, celery, and mushrooms.  Cook about 10 minutes, or until slightly softened.  Add more vegetable broth as needed to keep vegetables from sticking.  Add green onions and cook a couple more minutes.  Remove these ingredients from skillet.

Add a Tbsp. of vegetable broth to skillet.  Add barley and nuts and cook until slightly browned, stirring often.  Add more vegetable broth as needed to keep barley and nuts from sticking. 

Add the onion mixture back into the skillet.  Add parsley, salt, pepper, and vegetable broth.

Spray a 2 quart baking casserole dish with vegetable spray.  Pour mixture into the baking dish.  Bake for 1 hour plus 15-30 minutes.  Take out of oven when broth is absorbed and barley is to desired texture.

If using a purchased vegetable broth, the amount of salt may need to be decreased. 

Olive oil or any vegetable oil can be used in place of the vegetable broth when cooking the vegetables and browning the nuts, but I chose to replace it with the vegetable broth to take away as much fat from the recipe as possible. 

Husband's note:  This stuff may look a little bland in the pictures but it is delicious, filling, and very healthy.  The red stuff  sprinkled on top is Sriracha chili sauce.  My son has turned us on to this and he puts it in almost everything.  This barley bake heats up great as a leftover and is in my top 10 list as one of my wife's favorites.