Sprout & Pea

After a nice bike ride to Roo­sevelt Island this past Sat­ur­day, my friend Jen and I had every inten­tion to head home and make our­selves a big lunch but by the time we got back to our neigh­bor­hood, we were exhausted so we decided to treat our­selves to a refresh­ing (and cost effi­cient for eat­ing out) lunch at EAT.  I decided on the farro and greens salad and it totally hit the spot after a long ride — right between fill­ing and light.

The fresh greens, the tex­ture of the farro and the slight tangy fla­vor all mar­ried together per­fectly.  I had never cooked farro before so a few nights later I wanted to try it out.  Unfor­tu­nately, I couldn’t find it at any of my local mar­kets, so I decided on Bar­ley instead.  Bar­ley is not great for a gluten-​​free diet but the tex­ture of it was what I was look­ing for. Bar­ley also has quite a few health ben­e­fits and can aid in intesti­nal health and help lower cho­les­terol.  You can read more about the health ben­e­fits here.  After pick­ing up the bar­ley, I was crav­ing some­thing warm and savory, so I decided to roast up some of the baby pump­kin they had at the mar­ket and crum­ble in some goat cheese.  This dish was going to need a lit­tle some­thing extra so I toasted some agave glazed pecans to throw on top.  When I lived in Aus­tralia years ago, I became addicted to pump­kin and goat cheese risotto which seemed to often appear on menus in Mel­bourne.  This turned out to be a per­fect throw­back to my favorite sweet and savory dish (and a tad lighter and health­ier with­out the butter).

When­ever I buy a pump­kin, my favorite part is roast­ing the seeds.  I keep it sim­ple, just the way my mom made them when I was grow­ing up.  Sprin­kle a lit­tle Adobo (or sea­son­ings of your choice) on them and bake them in the oven at about 350/​375 until they start to get crispy and a lit­tle brown. After you scoop the seeds out of the pump­kin, make sure to wash all of the stringy pump­kin off.  I like to put them in a strainer and run some cool water over them and then pat dry with a paper towel before sea­son­ing.  This time around I added a lit­tle paprika to them which didn’t affect the fla­vor that much but did add a nice touch of color.  They’re the per­fect thing to munch on while you’re wait­ing for the pump­kin to roast.

Here’s how I made the bar­ley dish…

1 cup pearled bar­ley
1 1/​2 cups of water
1 1/​2 cups of veg­etable broth
3 tbs goat cheese
1 small pump­kin
1/​2 cup pecans
driz­zle of honey or agave nectar

Com­bine bar­ley, water and veg­etable broth in a medium pot and sim­mer for 1 hour and 15 min­utes (check instruc­tions on the pack­age of bar­ley as it may vary). While this is cook­ing, slice the pump­kin into small pieces and place on a bak­ing sheet. Place in oven and roast at 450 degrees for about 35 min­utes (toss­ing half way through) or until pump­kin is soft. Remove from oven and peel skin off. Place in food proces­sor and pulse a few times until pump­kin is shred­ded (not pureed). You can also shred with a fork. Place pecans on a sep­a­rate bak­ing sheet and driz­zle some honey or agave over them. Toast in the oven for about 15 min­utes at 350 degrees. When they are done, crush some of them up, leav­ing a few whole.
Once bar­ley is done cook­ing, mix in the pump­kin and goat cheese and sprin­kle the pecans on top.