Barley Risotto with beans and greens/turned into soup

Wifey wants more whole grains. I suppose my thickening, middle-aged trunk could benefit from this too. Barley makes me think either of soup or risotto. I googled (or binged?) barley risotto and was referred to a recipe on smittenkitchen.com for barley riso with beans and escarole. I thought this a good place to start, so headed out to the garden to see what we had.

We had red chard.

My chicken stock was frozen, but three sandwich bags worth of frozen peels and onion stubbs created a quick vegetable stock while I started the dish. (OK, there were a couple of chicken femurs in there too.)

Stem the greens, rinsing well. Finely dice the stems, and saute these, along with a chopped medium onion, a grated carrot and a chopped celery stalk in some olive oil. Don't skimp on the oil. Use about 3 or 4 tablespoons. Season with s and p and allow to cook down and sweeten, about 10 minutes.

Add a cup of pearl barley and stir to coat with the vegetables and oil. After about a minute, maybe two, add 1/2 glass of white wine. Stir until absored.

Start adding ladlefulls of hot stock to the barley. You'll need about 5 cups in all. It shouldn't be dry, though nor should it be soupy.

Add a few handfuls of chopped greens and allow them to wilt, about two minutes. Add 1/2 can of cooked beans (I like to use a little of the liquid too; it adds a nice mouth feel). Check the seasoning.

You could top this with a drizzle of olive oil, some parmesan cheese, shredded basil...





The leftovers were taken to work the next day. That evening, the final leftovers were introduced into a soup. I sauted onion, carrot and celery, added the leftover barley (and some leftover lentils from Sunday's evening meal, see below), some chopped cabbage, some chicken stock, a frozen arugula pesto ice cube from this spring's early crop, a couple of leftover canned tomatoes and their juice, and some sauteed sweet potato cubes. I sauteed these in duck fat because I had it and it makes them taste good. It was very tasty. Soups are easy. They can be anything.