MJ, this post is for you...

I dedicate this post to MJ.

Last week, I decided that my bank account and my backside were feeling the effects of constant restaurant dining and so I imposed a new rule: No going out to eat for one week (I aim for a month). I am 5 days in and I can say that with the exception of one happy hour (work-related), I have maintained my position of dining a la house. And so, the pantry experiment begins again...

As a true pantry experimenter, sometimes you just have to figure out what the purpose of flaxseed really is, what a marinated eggplant tastes like and, with today's experiment, what barley actually tastes like...

This is barley. This is what I can tell you about barley:
1) It's a delicious source of dietary fiber
2) It's a friend of the heart
3) It's one of the oldest and most treasured grains
4) It hangs out with soups, cereal (really?), salad, stir fry, pilaf, and stuffing

Don't believe me??? Well...that's what Bob said.

and I seriously, seriously under-cooked it....

I awoke feeling ambitious. Not ambitious enough to tackle, say, cleaning or running errands. No, the perfect project for the day was to make a nice chicken soup/stew/stoup/souew...whatever, it's not a soup and it's not a stew.

I thought for sure that an old standby, chicken and dumplings, would fit the bill for figuring out a nice meals-for-the-week solution so that I could avoid going out to eat but I had no dill, and no desire to hand roll dumplings. So instead, I resurrected a few ingredients that I had bought out of curiosity but never opened.

I had the choice between barley for a soup and bulgur. I chose the barley because the bulgur sounds like vulgar and who wants to eat vulgar stoup? I also bought thyme on a whim and thought that it might make a nice addition to a dish. Not sure which dish but I knew there is a dish out there for which thyme makes the perfect addition.

So I assemble my unfamiliar ingredients on the counter:
Barley
Thyme

And the old standbys:
Carrot
Celery
Onion
Chicken Thigh
Sea Salt- Coarse (the darling of any pantry)
Chicken broth

I made what I have just learned is called a mirepoix (meaning French for a combination of celery, carrots and onions, diced in a pot to cook) and let it get all nice together. The I tossed in the chicken, thyme and the broth. Sea Salt for taste. The the barley...cue unfamiliar and slightly creepy music.

I read the directions on the package, I really did. And I cooked it down for what was about 50 minutes according to Bob Red Mill. I am not sure, but it is quite possible that barley is supposed to have a slightly crunchy mouth-feel but again, I am not sure.

To round out this stoup, I had some leftover grilled corn from last night and that got cut off the cob and tossed in. Overall, not a bad experiment and perhaps I might find something else to do with barley. As it stands I can say that I....like...barley, but just barely.

Any ideas on better barley?