It started with the Blueberry Farro Salad. It continued with Peachy Melon Salad. Now, I present Pineapple Barley Salad!!! Why so many salads?! Glad you asked! Friends of Mr. Forensic BBQ had a lot to say about my salad posts. I figured since they liked them so much, I would dedicate a series to them!! Courtesy of New Hampshire (not the entire state, just a select few residents), I introduce Seven Salads of Summer!
Number three of seven is Pineapple Barley. I made some major alterations to this one. The recipe called for garlic and orange juice mixed with pureed cashews for a creamy dressing. I opted to use a delicious strawberry poppyseed dressing that I had already on hand and drink my fresh-squeezed-straight-from-the-juicery OJ directly from the recyclable bottle! Shoutout to Fresh Thyme Farmer’s Market for this refreshing drink! I disregarded the garlic and threw the raw cashews on at the end for a perfect nutty crunch! I also added cucumber (because cucumber is the perfect summer vegetable-light, crunchy, and hydrating) and little tomatoes that we picked up at the local farmer’s market last weekend.
I cooked the barley on the stovetop, making a huge mess when it overflowed a bit. Mr. FBBQ and I are getting a new range since our oven on the old one stopped working, so I wasn’t too concerned with a major cleanup. While the barley cooked, I diced the usual rainbow of peppers (red, green, orange, and yellow). I also chopped the chives and sliced up the cucumber. I halved the tomatoes and chopped cilantro. This was my first time cutting up a whole pineapple. It was really easy to do! Mr. FBBQ “helped” by asking Alexa for a video on how to cut up a whole pineapple. He’s so supportive! The scraps went into our compost bin. If you don’t already have a compost bin, you should get one. We got ours on Amazon. It wasn’t expensive and easy to assemble. It’s basically a round barrel with 2 sections. I dump all my organic scraps in there and eventually I get nutrient-rich soil. Eating a plant-based diet, I end up with a lot of organic scraps. Between compost and recycling, we put very little in the actual trash. I did have a bit of a mishap with the compost bin and now have a cute little garden of unknown greens growing below it. In nutrient-rich soil, of course!
Now that our barley is cooked and cooling, we can start assembling our salad. Start with kale, baby spinach and arugula (my favorite mix of salad greens). Add the diced peppers, cucumber, pineapple, tomatoes, chives, and cilantro. The cilantro added a nice zip to this salad, which already had many contrasting tastes and textures. I also threw some blueberries in there, because why not!? Add the barley, top with the raw cashews, and dress with some strawberry poppyseed. Salads are such great summer dinners! I paired this one with some seven grain bread and it made for a very satisfying dinner with enough leftover for another night!
