Barley and Almond Casserole

This recipe is from another new book I got at Christmas.  I can't say that I have used it as much.  Mostly because I've been doing a lot of freezer meals.  However, this is the direction I want to go with my cooking.  It is called A word of Wisdom; Seasonal grain Based, low animal product, whole food recipes.  I have only made 2 recipes from this book.  This one was delicious.  Loved it.  The other one was gross.  I actually wrote in the cookbook -Yuck! -1 Star.  In theory it looked good - they were cabbage rolls.  I've had some that are delicious, but this one didn't have you boil the cabbage first, so it didn't end up getting cooked well, and was therefore hard to eat.  I can eat raw cabbage, I can eat cooked cabbage, but something about half way in between cabbage just makes it difficult to chew and eat.  Then the sauce had tomato, lemon, honey and allspice. I thought it sounded interesting.  I never recommend that combination.  To me the honey and the lemon with the allspice ended up tasting something like a cough drop, so it was like a tomatoey cough drop.  YUCK.  Anyway, that was the recipe I didn't like.
This is the recipe I did like.  It was so good and made the house smell so wonderful when it was cooking.

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 3/4 cup slivered almonds (I used sliced)
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup barley (I used whole barley, not pearl.  I worried about that, but it turned out fine.)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cup stock (I used vegetable)
• 1 cup minced chives or green onion (seasonally optional) I only used a couple of green onions -maybe 1/3-1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup minced parsley (seasonally optional, I used maybe a Tablespoon or 2)

Directions

1. Heat 2 Tablespoons butter in a saute pan.  Add almonds and toast.  Set aside.  Melt 1/4 cup butter and add barley and onion.  Saute until tender.  (This part smells soooo yummy)
2. Add almonds, parsley, chives, salt and pepper.  Add stock.  Bring to a boil and pour into a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish.   
3. Bake at 375 for 1 hour.  (I think I probably covered this with foil.   Directions don't say to though.)

I remember I worried about this having enough stock because usually you need 2-1 ratio.  I can't remember, but I probably did up the stock to 2 cups especially since I was using whole barley, not pearl.  (This is why I should blog more regularly)  I have modified the directions to how I made it. 

The original also had an optional white sauce.  It was an extremely basic white sauce and I chose not to make it.