64: Barley and Chard Salad

Barley and chard google searches lead to this recipe from the kitchn. Unfortunately I'd used up my roasted beets on other projects, so I tried to go simple. Diced a few small onions and minced up some garlic. Started that in a pan. Took the leaves off my chard, cut those into strips and diced the stems. 

Once the onions were getting soft added the chard stems and let that keep going a bit before adding the leaves, salt, and a little vinegar. Let that wilt down. 

Grabbed my barley from the fridge, and mixed up a little more vinegar and some of a second batch of green sauce (cilantro, basil, rosemary, something else). Mixed everything together. 

I wasn't super thrilled with the result. There was a weird pervasive bitterness I don't remember from past chard dishes. A bit more seasoning helped. I also thought without beets I needed something else a little sweet, so I added honey which helped as well...but I may have added to much. Fiddling a bit here. Luckily I only did this dressing with a small portion of the greens though, so leftovers were just the base greens and barley with a little extra salt and pepper. Oh and an egg. 

Surprisingly good drunk food. A lot of pepper was added to that before it went in my face.

Notes for improvement: 

- Green sauce may not have been the best choice with this. At least with everything else going on. 

- I was having issues with the size of the greens vs the barley, it didn't want to mix.

- The leftovers seemed fine proportion wise, so it looks like less barley/better mixing was the answer. 

Sauce 3: Green Sauce & Dish 37: Escarole Scrambled Eggs

Salsa verde- it appears- can refer to a number of sauces. Ask wikipedia. My green sauce attempts to be salsa verde in the Italian style- but it's more of an incredibly herbal olive oil. Super delicious. Super variable- I was taught to use whatever was on hand, though I guess a lot of parsley is traditional. Hence me calling it green sauce. So so green.

Ingredients:

1 tbs each: thyme, rosemary and mint, chopped fine 

1 clove garlic

4 capers

Salt to taste

Chop up your herbs with a sharp knife- I settled on the name Sweetness. Chop 'em up good. My rosemary could've stood to be finer, but I don't have those knife skills yet. Eventually. Chop (or grate) up your garlic fine, as well as those capers. Put in a container, I used a half pint mason jar, and cover with olive oil. Taste, add a little salt if you need to. Let sit for a few hours.

I don't think you can go bad with olive oil and herbs. I threw mine in the fridge before I went to bed and added a little more olive oil in the morning. It needed it.

And what can you do with this sauce?

Put it on everything! Scrambled eggs for one. I used escarole, which was crazy bitter raw, but mellowed out when cooked. I added the green sauce after plating. Added a little salt and pepper, too. The bread is Rhubarb and Pistacho from Runner and Stone. I picked up two loaves the other day.

It wasn't a conscious choice- I'd cut the two loaves in half and froze the rest, so this was what was out- but the sweetness went nicely with everything.

I should just be a professional egg photographer. Nom.

Notes for Improvement:
- Make more green sauce, vary the herbage- or have more variety
- Chop that rosemary finer
- Don't wait so long, any brownness is due to oldness, not a dull knife