Simple and Delicious Barley Corn Salad

I'm honestly not really sure whether this Barley Corn Salad recipe is brought to you by my unceasing love of grain salads or my magical pantry which I swear to you continues to refill itself with odd grains just as quickly as I can use them.  Whichever it might be, I'm quite pleased that I get to share it with you!

So first of all, much like the Barley Lime Fiesta Salad I shared with you last summer, I didn't use any barley whatsoever in this.  Sorry for the misnomer.   While I didn't have any barley on hand I did have sorghum.   Sorghum just happens to be a delicious substitute for barley, so I was in luck.  :-)

Sorghum is a whole grain that tastes mild and a little earthy.  While they taste nothing alike, it looks a lot like Israeli couscous.  It's delicious in soups and salads and it's right up my "I like to cook weird stuff" alley.  Apparently you can even pop it like popcorn (!), though I've yet to give that one a try.  It's one of those things that I don't often think to cook with, but I should cook with often because it's filling yet light and delicious.

Caprese Farro Salads and Endless Grains

Well guys, I still have a ridiculous number of weird grains in my pantry.  Ok, weird grains might not really be a fair description- more like wonderful and underutilized grains.

I've tried to cook my way through them (thank goodness they have an insane shelf life!) but no matter how many ways I find to use them they're still there.  Have you ever been to a restaurant and been served a ginormous salad and no matter how much you eat it doesn't seem like you've made a dent?

No...that's just me?  Ok, well it's just like that.  I cook and cook and cook and cook and it's like freaking Strega Nona's pot in there.  Never-ending grains.

Thankfully- and if you've been following along with my postings for any amount of time you know this already- I'm a bit obsessed with interesting side dishes.  I just love mixing things up and trying out new ways to accompany meals, and fun new grains are always a great addition.  I've already written about a delicious Farro Salad with Asparagus and Parmesan and Barley Lime Fiesta Salad, so it's pretty obvious that I'm a fan of grain salads.  When I worked with Swanson a few months ago and was asked to create a recipe using their broth I knew that I was going to get a little creative and make- yet another- yummy salad and work on using up some of those grains in the pantry!

Easy One Pan Red Beans and Rice Bake

Can I share something with you?

I suppose I consider myself a foodie.  I get ridiculously excited about good restaurants.  I consume cookbooks like they're novels.  I wax rhapsodic about amazing ingredients.  I should be in a support group for Penzey's addicts.

That being said, that's not everyday real life.

Everyday life is your standard picky 10 year-old eater, a ridiculously frustrating-to-feed 5 year-old with autism, and me- a mom who is generally busy all day every day with popcorn making, household, and kids and just really doesn't have time to go all gourmet before my husband gets home in the evening.

That doesn't mean I want to serve my family a box of mac and cheese or frozen pizza every night, either.

Nope, I think most of us often need a happy medium in our lives.  Simple food that people will actually enjoy that comes together quickly without a lot of time involved.  Good foods that will nourish our family, fill them up, and make them happy.

Not-Quite-A-Grain Salad

In my early twenties I had the opportunity to live on my own for about a year.

I was in the Air Force, 2100 miles away from family, insistent that I would make do on my housing allowance on my own rather than with a roomate- and therefore living on a very stretched grocery budget in a very, very sketchy little apartment.

It was wonderful.

I had lived away from my parents before, for a couple of years with my best friend right out of high school.  I had held down a job, paid my bills, done all of that adult stuff.

But for the first time in my life I was doing it completely and totally alone.  No one to tell me when to go to bed or what to have for dinner.  I learned lots of lessons- like that paying one's light bill in a timely fashion is in general a spectacular idea (!) and how to dodge creepy next door neighbors.  But the most important thing to come of that period in my life was the amazing sense of self.  For the first time in my life I wasn't someone's child, roommate, or wife.

Barley Lime Fiesta Salad

Okay, let me just start off by saying right off that bat that the title of my post is a total misnomer where I'm concerned- I didn't use barley at all.

I could have used barley.

But remember all of those weird grains I have hanging out in my pantry?

And my current obsession with grain salad?

Yeah...this salad looked awesome but I had other grains to try and didn't feel like digging through my pantry for barley.  So I decided to take a leap of faith and go for it- I subbed sorghum.

Experimenting With Farro and Other Weird Grains

So I've had a shelf in my pantry full of weird grains for, oh, I don't know...over a year now?  

Amaranth.  Farro.  Sorghum.  Kamut.  Millet.  Spelt.  Teff.

I won a set of Bob's Red Mill Grains of Discovery from a blog giveaway and they've just sort of been sitting there, waiting to be used.  My husband wanted me to give them away, or do SOMETHING with them...  I just really didn't know what to do!

I was excited by the thought of using them and trying new foods, but I was at a loss as to what exactly I should make.  I'd half-heartedly searched for recipes every once in a while but nothing really caught my eye.

That changed a couple of weeks ago when I was planning out a menu for family that was visiting for the weekend.  I decided to look for some new recipes to try out on our guests and I stumbled across a recipe for Farro Salad with Asparagus and Parmesan.

Farro, asparagus, cranberries, tomatoes, pecans, balsamic vinaigrette...yum.

There is absolutely nothing about that salad that doesn't scream "put me in your mouth" to me!