Barley with Honey-roasted Carrots -- a tasty winter #recipe

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: I enjoy the New York Times' regular food newsletter and occasionally spot a recipe I’d like to make. Alas, we don't subscribe, so when a carrot-barley combo went by and I’d already used all my free downloads, I was on my own. I figured out what flavor profile, as the pros say, that I wanted, and created my own recipe. (The pros say they “developed a recipe,” but that sounds silly to me. I’d much rather create!) 

Mr. Right loves barley and we adore roasted veggies, so it was an easy sell. I used baby carrots, but if you prefer adults, cut them into sticks. 

I used my easy Italian herb blend, originally published in Killing Thyme, the third Spice Shop mystery featuring Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market. You could also use thyme, or any blend you enjoy. Garam masala would be interesting, as would a lemon pepper and herb blend. Think about the “flavor profile” you want---what gets your mouth watering. (And of course, it might be different next time you make this---flexibility is the spice of life!) 

This makes a nice side dish I think would pair well with almost any kind beef or chicken. I reheated leftovers for lunch and spotted a bit of feta in the fridge, so I added a little on top. So good! Alas, I didn't think to take a picture. Next time, I’ll crumble feta in to the warm dish – you choose, based on your taste. Your “flavor profile.” 

Enjoy!

Barley with Honey-roasted Carrots 

1 cup barley, uncooked

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons butter

1 pound baby carrots or cut carrots

salt

1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs or other blend 

lemon zest and juice

1/4 to ½ cup crumbled feta, optional 

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a small rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Cook the barley in two cups of water, loosely covered, over medium-low. It should be done in about 22-25 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the honey and butter in a small saucepan. Spread the carrots on the baking sheet, pour the honey-butter mixture over them, and stir to mix. Sprinkle with salt and herbs. Roast until slightly soft—a fork should pierce and cut them nicely—about 20 minutes. 

Place barley in serving dish. Top with carrots. If some of the honey-butter mixture remains liquid-ish on the parchment paper, carefully lift the paper and drizzle the mixture into your serving dish. Top with lemon zest and squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the bowl. (You want brightness, not mouth-pucker.) Top with feta if you’d like. 

Serves 4-6 as a side dish. Reheats nicely. 

Enjoy!

A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, in paper, ebook, and audio)

From the cover: 

One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.

Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.

On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.

Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.

One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .

Available at Amazon  * Barnes & Noble  * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest book is Between a Wok and a Dead Place, the 7th Spice Shop mystery.  

A past president of Sisters in Crime and national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

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