Brenda's Barley Fantastico

Here's what I made for dinner tonight. Super yummy and super healthy. It was inspired by a combination of the recipe for Zucchini-Barley Mexicali found in "Healthy Cooking For Two" by Brenda Shriver and the recipe for Barley Primavera found in the "Whole Foods Market Cookbook."

olive oil
1/2 medium onion - chopped
2 small cloves garlic - minced
1 tomato diced (or you can use sundried tomatoes)
1 small zucchini cubed
1 small summer squash cubed
1 tbs fresh chopped parsley
1 cup cooked barley
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Parmesan Cheese (to taste)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Saute onion and garlic in a little olive oil for about 1 minute.
Add tomatoes and zucchini. Cook until the zucchini is tender, but still crisp (this should only take a couple of minutes).
Add balsamic vinegar, stir until vinegar thoroughly coats the vegetables. Add barley and parsley. Stir together over heat for another couple minutes.
Transfer entire mixture to a greased baking dish. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Bake at 350 for 10 - 15 minutes.

Oh so yummy!

Unfortunately because I combined two different recipes and added some of my own elements, I have no idea what the calorie count is for this dish. In the Healthy Cooking cookbook, it says the calorie count is 187 with 6 g of fat - but that dish calls for cheddar cheese, which I omitted in this dish, so there's probably even less in this version.

Happy eating!