Living Well 60+ March-April 2014 | Page 10

10 MARCH/APRIL 2014 Barley Casserole • • • • • • k Fran rt Kou fdood u the Go With the Grains de Versatile and delicious, grains are good for you If there’s one thing we hear about grains these days, it’s that they’re good for you. What hardly anybody seems to mention is that in addition to being nutritious and healthy, grains are delicious and can be flavorful and hearty in their own right. One of the great things about grains is their ability to absorb liquid and, therefore, the flavor of the ingredients that are included with them. Take barley, for instance. If you’re like me, your earliest (and perhaps only) memory of barley is of those little white grains in the Campbell’s vegetable soup that your mom used to heat up for winter lunches. Barley was, and probably still is, about the only thing in the soup that had any texture left after the merciless processing of the ingredients. best of these and adding other ingredients here and there, I perfected my own version. The resulting casserole makes a terrific companion to almost any entree from roast chicken to leg of lamb to standing rib roast. The wonderful thing about this magnificent grain is i