Barley Experiments

Barley Stuffed Green Pepper, good. Barley Morocco, good. Barley Pozole, excellent. I know the rest of you are in your third week, so it's too late to try the last dish mentioned: too spicy. But I want to share with you all this link to the basic recipe:

http://www.recipezaar.com/86844

My variation: I made half what the recipe called for, and used vegetable stock in place of chicken broth. In a cast iron skillet I toasted a cup of pearled barley to a medium brown. Though this is almost doubling the amount of barley called for, I added another 3/4 cup of unroasted pearled barley. When cooked, the roasted barley doesn't seem to get even a little bit gooey, and it makes a nice contrast to the unroasted type. I needed to add another couple of cups of water to the mix.
I don't know what grated cheese would add to the flavor, but chopped green onion didn't do much, nor fresh cilantro. Some fresh ground pepper was nice.