IGX

I realize that the "Warrior Diet" gave barley a bad name around here, but like almonds and ricotta cheese, it will be around long after the current fad diets are forgotten.

Anyway, I've made several barley based recipes out of "The Wine And Food Lover's Diet" by Philip Tirman, MD in the past couple of weeks, and they've turned out great. Tirman uses barley as a subsitute for rice (and other starchy grains) in a lot of dishes because it has a much lower glycemic index - which in turn keeps your blood sugar much more stable and leave you satiated a lot longer than rice (even brown rice).

I've made a couple of barley "risottos", a barley "paella", and a barley "pilaf" and they've all turned out great - the taste is a little nuttier than rice, the texture is different (the grains tend to 'pop' in your mouth) and it takes 40 minutes to cook and absorb all the liquids, but the results have been worth it. I even subsituted barley for cous-cous in a "California cous-cous salad" (lemon juice, olive oil, diced red onion and toasted chopped almonds), and except for the longer cooking time, it turned out fine. I could eat this recipe 3 times a week for the rest of my life and die a happy man.

And barley is actually pretty cheap. $1.50 for a 2 cup box of Quaker Oats pearl barley, and 1 cup will expand to 4 servings as a side dish.

Since my range stove top kind of sucks (1 big burner and 3 smaller 'bird's eye' warmers), I've found that a $30 electric non-stick skillet makes an ideal barley cooker - first you toast whatever nuts and stuff you want to add, then you take the nuts out and saute/sweat your aromatics, then you add the actual barley and toast it and coat it with the oils and aromatics, then you add your broth/stock or other liquid of choice, then you cover and simmer for 40-45 minutes, and you add your proteins, veggies, nuts and garnishes back in at various points during the simmering stage. It leaves your stove top free for more attention intensive dishes and it's great for summer cooking when you don't want to heat up the kitchen. And you use about a nickel of electricity in the process.

Barley: it's good stuff.

Abandoned by Wolves wrote:I realize that the "Warrior Diet" gave barley a bad name around here,

Eh? I've never read WD. What's supposed to be wrong with barley?

BTW, making kasha/buckwheat groats the traditional way with an egg is totally the bomb.

GDG!

GoDogGo! wrote:BTW, making kasha/buckwheat groats the traditional way with an egg is totally the bomb.

Oatmeal with an egg is also good.

GoDogGo! wrote:

Abandoned by Wolves wrote:I realize that the "Warrior Diet" gave barley a bad name around here,

Eh? I've never read WD. What's supposed to be wrong with barley?

GDG!

Nothing wrong with barley, nossir - just that our regard for barley might have been tainted by its association with the WD and the goofy WD obsessions of the DD nutrition forum. IMO the advent of the WD, more than anything else, was the beginning of the end of DD as a worthwhile source of training info. That and the whole Garm/-S- meltdown.

But it wasn't barley's fault. It was Ori's.

Have you ever tried spelt. Similar cooking time to barley and similar taste. I'm not sure what its nutrition value is compared to barley, its gotta be healthy.

I have a friend who has so many allergies, spelt is the only grain she can eat. Also allergic to nuts, citrus, tomatos. Basically, she lives on meat and cheese.