This recipe really intrigued me. I haven't eaten barley very much in my life, so the thought of an entire casserole devoted to barley seemed very unique to me. I actually made this to take over to my Mom and Dad's house for dinner a couple of weeks ago (my Mom is a vegetarian). It was pretty easy to make and assemble- only took about 60 minutes of prep time. Not too bad. So, the way it works is you take pearled or hulled barley- whichever you can find, and you cook it in water for 1 hour until tender (it says to drain off excess water, but my barley soaked it all up). While that cooks you saute some onion and garlic in some olive oil. Then you add some grated carrots, diced celery, shoyu (a kind of soy sauce found in the Asian section of most big grocery stores), sea salt, dried basil and oregano, and garlic powder. These get cooked until the veggies are tender (it won't take long). Then the barley goes in and you toss it all together. Next, you make the Tahini Dressing. This is SUPER easy- just whizzed up in the blender. You simply throw some sauteed onion, tahini (sesame paste), shoyu, garlic powder, paprika, dried basil, and dried oregano into the blender. Add some water and then blend it up until it has a creamy consistency- super easy! To assemble you layer in half the barley mixture, then some Tahini Dressing, then finish with the rest of the barley mixture and Tahini Dressing. This bakes for about 35 minutes. Now, for the critique..........I am very sad to say that this did not go over well with everyone. It did have a really good flavor, but that was about all it had going for it. The barley was really dried out and chewy. The texture was just ALL wrong- way too dry, I mean like Sahara Desert dry! I'm not going to completely toss this one to the wayside though, the flavor was really delish, so I think I'll try adding some veggie stock next time when it bakes and see if this helps the barley stay moist and creamy. This way just didn't work out, sorry Alicia!
My rating- 5
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