Pear-Barley (Bacon) Salad

Everything is better with bacon, no? I think it's a good principle to operate under. This isn't the prettiest salad ever, in fact its a little bland looking, but the joy is all in the textures. Think crispy bacon, creamy feta, crunchy pears, chewy barley... One of my favorite ways to make a pita pizza is with bacon, onions (cooked in the bacon grease, of course), bosc pears, and feta. It being too hot to make a pizza today, I opted for the salad, forgetting somehow that bacon takes cooking, which is hot. Anyway, by the time I started cooking the bacon and realized it was too hot to be doing this, it was too late, so I just continued, throwing the onions in the bacon grease once the bacon was cooked to within an inch of its life. Then I figured that if I have the stove on I may as well add some garlic to the mix. Meanwhile, I cooked the barley (I don't care what the package may tell you, only use 2 cups of water to 1C of barley, or it will be overcooked and blech). Then I put everything in a big bowl and couldn't stop eating it.

Makes ~4C
1/2C pearled barley, raw
6 slices bacon (+1-2 slices to eat while you're making the rest of the salad, so that none of the actual salad bacon gets eaten)
1 bosc pear, cut up into little pieces
1/4C pecans, chopped
1/2 onion, diced, cooked in the bacon grease
1-2 cloves of garlic, also diced and cooked in the bacon grease
1 tbs fresh thyme (less if its dried)
1C chopped parsley
1-2 tbs salt
2-4 tbs crumbled feta
pepper to taste
1-2 tsp lemon juice

Mix everything together and eat.

Radish-Carrot Salad

On an impulse buy the other day, I got some radishes. They were so pretty looking, sitting there all bright pink and shiny with their little green tops just shooting out perkily chirping "buy me! buy me!" Your vegetables don't talk to you? strange.

Then I got home and realized I didn't know what to do with my radishes. I looked around on epicurious, and it appears that they are generally put into some sort of salad. I liked the idea of chopping them up finely and mixing them with other crunchy things, so, I did that. The recipe follows. In the spirit of having bought these due to their prettiness factor, I wanted as colorful a salad as I could get.



1C radishes, julienned
1C carrots, julienned or just strips made with the peeler (easier)
2-3 green onions, chopped finely
1 shallot, diced

Dressing:
Combine until you like the taste: sesame oil, honey, lemon juice, and salt. Toss the salad with the dressing and eat it up.

Strawberry Lemonade Bars

So I had leftover strawberry sauce after making my elaborate strawberry dessert, and I didn't know what to do with it. Then I saw this, and the problem was solved. I used that exact recipe, only with half the strawberry sauce, since that was how much I had. I also cut the recipe in half, since I have an 8x8" pan, rather than a 9x13" pan. And I must say, these are the best lemon bars I've ever made (sorry, Joy of Cooking. Yours just don't stand up compared to these). The crust was just right-crunchy yet chewy, sweet but not overly so. The filling was also perfect, with that extra crusty-goodness on top, lightly pink thanks to the strawberries, and the perfect texture of lemon-custard-whatever-it-is-that-is-lemon-bars. My quest for the perfect lemon bar over.

I don't have an Ed-rating for these, since Ed doesn't like lemon bars on principle, and so refused to try one. Sorry.

Crunchy broccoli

Alton Brown did a show on broccoli once, and we tried one of the versions of cooking it that he suggested. I think that is the only way we've made broccoli since. It still tastes like broccoli, but its crunchy and salty. The idea is that you roast broccoli that has been tossed with olive oil, toasted panko, salt, and paprika, and then you eat it.

Preheat the oven to 400F.


Chop the broccoli into bite-size pieces and toss with olive oil.


Pour about 1/4C of panko into a baking sheet, and shake it around to even it out. Put it in the oven for five minutes, until it is brown and crunchier than normal.


Pour the toasted panko over the broccoli, add ~1 tsp of salt and ~1 tsp paprika (optional), toss it all around to coat.


cook it for 10-15 minutes, until the broccoli is cooked, but still crunchy.

Strawberry muffins

I have a serious backlog of yummy things to eat. After strawberry picking, I made strawberry muffins, and Ed really liked them. Ed is my barometer of how good food actually is. Not only did these pass the "not bad" rating, they hit the "these are excellent!" rating (complete with exclamation point). That is pretty rare. I guess what I'm saying is, try making these muffins. They're just the PDQ berry muffin from the King Arthur Flour book, but if you don't have that book yet (after all my raving about it?? geez), here is the recipe.

Strawberry Muffins
2C flour
1/2C sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs baking powder
1.5C berries
2-4 tbs butter, melted
1C milk (I used skim, because I had it). Or sour cream or yogurt.
2 eggs

1/4C coarse sugar (optional)

Preheat your oven to 500F. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a big bowl. Add the berries, I quartered my strawberries and then chopped them in half again the not-long way. In a separate bowl or two-cup measure, mix the butter, milk, and eggs. Add the wet to the dry, stir until just combined, and distribute among 12 greased muffin tins. Sprinkle ample amounts of coarse sugar to the top of each muffin. Put them in the oven, drop the temperature to 400, and bake for 20 minutes.

Eat!