Puree food is so 2012

It seems 2013 marks the transition from endless ice cubes of baby food in the freezer to now having to prepare one meal for 2 kids, hooray! At 11 months, my daughter has quite aggressively refused food being fed to her specifically in the pulverised version.  Breakfast mush still is acceptable but I fear for a limited time…. I guess there’s always the reliable back up of Vegemite toast!

Along with the baby changes, my husband and I are making some diet adjustments of our own.  This week we are going to get back into the healthy mid week meals, and try to make enough to take leftovers as lunch the next day.  I visited the produce markets this weekend and felt inspired by all the leafy green vegetables on offer.  I am a big believer that green vegetables will cure all illnesses (this is just one of my almost-medical theories)! I feel the Drs in my family reading this feeling fairly relieved I chose the creative career route!

So I bought Kale, Chard and Arugula (it sounds more exotic than rocket!).  With my 3 bunches of green goodness in hand, along with a lovely bunch of baby beetroot I thought of a yummy salad.  I love big plates of hearty salads that are a meal in one and I plan on sharing many.  This one is made up of the green veg mentioned earlier, baked baby beets, zucchini and pearl barley with a basic vinaigrette.

Last week, I was fortunate to have my parents in town, which was great as my mum also cooked a number of meals for us!! She made a lovely salad using pearl barley as the main body of the salad (otherwise the men start wondering where the main course is!) served with delicious grilled fresh sardines.  I had never made barley this way and it was really good.

Pearl barley it is so easy to prepare, just boil it in a lot of water like you do pasta for at least 40 minutes.  It was soft on the outside and still had a little pop in the mouth when you bite into it.  Its quite tasty on its own and the good news is that it’s very good for you.  High in fibre, low GI, contains lots of vitamins and antioxidants and is low in fat.  Unfortunately it is not gluten free (it’s low gluten though) but it is wheat free.

So that’s my healthy spiel, here is the recipe, I was really happy with how it turned out and it can be made with endless variations.  Oh and the Spanish Clementines I bought yesterday taste even better than they look – I am a sucker for fruit with the leaves still on 🙂

Antioxidant Salad of Goodness

Serves 6-8 as a side or 4 as a meal

Pre heat the oven to 160 degrees celcius

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup pearl barley (dry)
• 1 bunch of beetroot (I used baby but regular size is fine)
• 1 bunch each of rocket, kale, chard (you could use english spinach if you can’t find kale or chard, anything green and robust) sliced so it yields about 6 cups or so of greens
• 1 small zucchini diced
• 1 clove garlic crushed
• drizzle olive oil for sautéing

Dressing

• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• juice of a lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard

To Make

1. Firstly prepare your beetroot.  Chop the stalks off and wrap the washed bulbs in foil.  If using large beetroot, wrap each one individually.  I put 3 baby ones in each package.  Bake in the oven for about 45 – 60 minutes.  I cooked mine for about 50 minutes then turned the oven off and left them in the oven while I prepared the rest.  To prepare, using disposable gloves if you wish (I used bare hands), open the foil packages, the skins should pull straight off and chop the beetroot into bite sized chunks, not too small.
2. Have your barley cooking in a big pot of water for about 40 minutes and drain when done.
3. To make the dressing, whisk ingredients in a small bowl until combined.
4. Heat a big pan or wok with a drizzle of olive oil and on a high heat toss the green leaves, zucchini and garlic with a pinch of salt and pepper for about a minute until just wilted.  turn off the heat to avoid the leaves becoming too soggy.
5. Throw the cooked barley, beetroot and dressing in and toss lightly and serve.  We had this with simple grilled chicken breast for some protein.

PS – I had planned on tossing in a variety of herbs such as dill, mint, parsley or coriander along with some nice salty chunks of feta.  This would make it even more delicious but I thought it was great as is.