No fuss seafood barley risotto

Risotto is supposed to be a work of love. You’re supposed to make sure every grain of rice is nicely toasted, that the resulting bed of rice spread out smoothly and creamily, and not standing up rigid (and I will admit, I learned that from Top Chef! Admit, you watch it too!). I found that if you make it in small amount, it’s easier to toast the rice, and if you make it with barley, it’s not only healthier, but also more forgiving! The barley has a chewy quality, so if you undercook it just a little, it’s fine (just chalk it up to barley being “whole grain”), and I dare you to overcook it.

This was a meal basically thrown together with whatever I had in the fridge, and it ended up a nice surprise!

Ingredients

1 cup pearl barley

Sardines pasta Sicilian style (?)

So tired today – traveled for 6 hours straight. D said, “but you only sit on the bus!” – um, that’s the tiring part!!

When I’m tired, I lose my appetite too. For dinner today I just wanted something simple, something that even though I have no appetite I’d still want to eat (ok-that might make no sense, but you still understand, right? right…?) I had a tin of sardines in olive oil, and looked up a bunch of sardines pasta recipes. Apparently in Sicily – according to Mario Batali & Emeril Lagasse, and maybe Rachel Ray – you make a straightforward pasta dish with sardines, olive oil, and bread crumbs/cheese (you can find these recipes easily on foodnetwork.com). But I didn’t feel like putting that much stuff in my dinner, so my pasta ended up being just sardines + parsley + + garlic + olive oil. But it tasted good! So, here we go, “recipe”:

Ingredients: