Day 185: Barley, Lentil & Spinach Salad
I’m doing some preemptive damage control before Stampede starts tomorrow.
Also, it has been a long and particularly stressful two days, and I hadn’t even considered dinner until we realized it was 4pm and we hadn’t even eaten lunch.
As I mentioned yesterday, it’s clean-out-the-fridge week. This, happily, coincides with my dogsitting duties, which includes the fringe benefit of a gardenful of fresh spinach that if not plucked, will go to seed. So the challenge for this week: Using Up Stuff with Fresh Spinach.
As I may have mentioned before, I love grainy salads, and particularly lentils and barley together. The combination makes a complete protein, and is substantial enough for a whole meal-in-a-bowl. The best part is that they cook for the exact same amount of time, so you can bring a pot of water to a boil and throw in a handful of dried lentils and a handful of barley (this would also be ideal for an Extremely Frugal-themed week) and boil them for 40 minutes, then drain in a colander, run cold water over them and you’re good to go. Bonus: you can freeze them at this point, which is what I did with the barley and lentils I used tonight. Just run them under warm water in a colander to thaw, or throw them directly into soup. Canned lentils, rinsed and drained, work just as well, but you’ll still have to cook the barley. Or try brown rice.
The great thing about salads is that you really don’t have to use a specific list of ingredients, or adhere to any measurements. I wished I had a tomato or better yet, some grape tomatoes, but I didn’t, so red pepper worked out fine. (Still, I wished it was roasted.) Any sort of balsamic vinaigrette works in place of the dressing.
Lentil & Barley Salad
1/2 cup dry green lentils
1/2 cup pot or pearl barley
1 garlic clove, peeled (optional)
1 tomato or a handful of grape tomatoes, chopped or halved
a big handful of fresh spinach or Italian parsley, chopped
as much crumbled feta as you like
some finely chopped purple onion or a chopped green onion
freshly ground black pepperDressing:
equal parts olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar (or some of each)
1 clove of garlic, finely squishedToss everything together and chill for a few hours to give the flavors time to get to know each other.
July 03 2008 09:48 pm | beans and grains and one dish and salads and vegetarian
pauline on 04 Jul 2008 at 12:20 pm #
Julie, I have just made the salad, looks fab. You are inspireing me to try new things. I can’t tell you how long I have had the green lentils in my cupboard. Me thinks I may have purchased them after seeing Survir Saran at Jasper and had to buy his cook book Indian home cooking. Anyways it was a long time ago. Have a great holiday, you sure do deserve it.
Jennifer on 08 Jul 2008 at 5:17 pm #
This will be my new favorite standby salad. I loved the texture of the barley and lentils together and the versatility of the rest of it. I used a variety of greens from the garden including beet tops, lamb’s quarters, spinach and chickweed
maplesugar on 28 Aug 2008 at 11:47 am #
Yum! I finally made this salad for the first time today and I LOVE it, even without the cheese(the feta lingering in the back of the fridge had sadly passed it’s prime, oops). I’m pretty sure it’ll be even better tomorrow since it’s only had an hour or so to marinate.
I doubled the barley & lentils when I cooked them so now I have a batch of those ready in the freezer woohoo!
Thanks Julie!
Day 270: Sausage, Lentil and Barley Soup — dinner with Juliedinner with Julie » Day 270: Sausage, Lentil and Barley Soup on 26 Sep 2008 at 10:51 pm #
[…] stock and a baggie of lentils and barley I had cooked extra of and frozen last time I made that lentil-barley salad. I usually just add a can of lentils to this particular soup, but the barley was a very good […]
lovefrom1stbite on 26 Nov 2008 at 12:54 am #
Lovely, I noticed many of your salads have spinach in them (always a good thing). So I thought you might like my spinach & strawberry improvised salad. You could check it out on my blog. I’m sure you’ll love it, it’s really out of this world.