Thursday: Barley salad

Pearl barley salad with summer squash and almonds.

This tasty grain salad actually included two types of summer squash: some left-over Cousas, as well as the shiny green "avocado" squash.  You can see the distinctly yellow flesh of the avocado squash in the picture above.  Up until now, we had really only used barley in soups, but we thought its chewy texture was nice here punctuated by crunchy red onions and toasted almonds.

Tuesday: A not very nettlesome soup

Barley-nettle soup with chives, topped with Parmesan.

This was our second go with nettles, and another success. Nettles are traditionally wilted into soups, and after seeing how well they held up to sauteeing last week, we understood why. We loosely based the soup on this recipe, but it's not really rocket science - it's a very basic veggie and grain soup. Here, we thought the nettles had a more spinach-like taste than they did in the stir-fry, where they tasted more herbal and reminded us a little of black tea.

Tuesday: Another new veggie

Japanese-influenced soup of burdock greens, barley and mushroom.

We improvised this soup as a vehicle for another veggie that is new to us - burdock greens. Burdock root (Japanese "gobo") is a long, brown taproot with an earthy flavor. This is the first time we had seen the greens for sale. Apparently, during the plant's first year of its two-year life cycle, the young greens and stems are soft enough to be edible. The stems just need a little peeling to remove any fibrous skin. We paired the greens with two common Japanese ingredients - barley and mushroom - and flavored the soup with garlic and soy sauce.

Tuesday: Two-bean soup

Barley soup with green beans, carrot and white beans.

This warm and wintry soup was made with our frozen green beans. Soup is a nice application for them - they have a good flavor, but it's impossible to replicate the texture of fresh green beans.

Monday: Radicchio-Barley Soup

Radicchio-barley soup with shaved Parmesan cheese.

Radicchio is a member of the chicory family, like our friend puntarella. Much of the radicchio grown in the US apparently ends up as an accent in pre-packaged salad mixes, but we actually vastly prefer it cooked. Unlike lettuce greens, radicchio is sturdy enough that it won't fall apart when sauteed, braised, or boiled - and its bitter flavor holds up well in starchy dishes, like risotto or this barley soup.

This soup is very simple, but it tastes surprisingly complex:

RADICCHIO-BARLEY SOUP

3 heads radicchio, chopped into strips
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup pearl barley
6 cups stock/water
Parmesan, grated finely

Sautee garlic and onions in olive oil, stir in radicchio and sautee until wilted, and then add barley and stock or water and boil until barley is tender, about 20-30 minutes. Serve with a generous amount of grated Parmesan on top.