The challenge: Making Barley "Risotto," and finding a good white wine; and convincing James he would like this recipe;-).
I began by blanching the Swiss Chard and spreading out over clean dry towels, and letting them dry while I prepared the risotto. I rendered the diced pancetta and managed not to eat it all-I have no willpower to keep from eating porkfat while I cook it. I'm sure some of you will find that hilarious, since I don't eat pork chops or pork loin if I can avoid it, and don't care much for ham...but add some fat or other ingredients into sausage or give me bacon and I can't stop myself;-). Go figure, I never claimed to make sense even to myself.
Next I added the shallot and swiss chard stems. After that cooked a few moments, I added the barley, salt and pepper and dry white wine. I found my homemade source for this one, and while the wine is not great, its not bad either. It worked for this recipe. Great thanks to Lauri of Salt River Winery for being willing to trade wine for empty bottles.
At this point, the Rhubarb Strawberry Crisp was ready to come out of the oven, so I set it on a trivet, and poured the chicken stock into the barley "risotto." I continued stirring for 45 minutes while adding the chicken stock a half cup at a time, and was somewhat amazed to watch the chicken stock be absorbed as the recipe said it would. I love when that happens. When the half hour hit, I realized I was having my face steamed, throughout this process and it smelled really good. I would eat just the lemon-barley "risotto." I hoped it would be just as good with the Swiss chard wrapping.
Somewhere during this time, I began working on the red pepper coleus(next recipe in this blog). I began roasting the peppers at 250-300 degrees and realized it was taking longer than it should. I flipped the page to check the recipe and realized I was supposed to roast at 450 degrees with a table spoon of olive oil included. I added it and adjusted the temp. and my oven became a smoky roast-master. As I added another half cup of chicken stock every 5-6 minutes I made sure to check the peppers and turn them.
Once the risotto was ready, I poured it into parchment paper in a baking pan and spread it out to help it cool. Then I worked on the coleus(sauce). About ten to fifteen minutes in, I realized I forgot to fold in the parsley and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, so I pulled the cold "risotto" out of the freezer and tried to fold it in. I ended up sprinkling it on top, realizing it would half to get rolled in when I wrapped it in the Swiss chard.
Shortly, thereafter, I began rolling the boules with the risotto mix inside. Then I popped them in another baking dish 13x9. I only got 11 instead of 12, but I called it close enough and called James with the 25 minute warning. Then I sat down with a good book until the alarm went off to tell me to pull it out of the oven.
James did enjoy it, as did I. James threatened to eat the entire pan there. Fortunately, Barley is filling and I had dessert on hand. About three hours later, he did feel hungry again, and somewhere in there, when I pointed out that I made this all by myself, he said he got to take partial credit for having the good sense(or something like that) to buy me this particular cookbook.
I will definitely make this recipe again, especially on one of those chilly days when you don't want to turn the heat on and it needs to warm up outside.
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