Barley and Kale Salad with Pine Nuts and Cherries, the World’s Healthiest Country, and the Mediterranean Diet
The article started with this paragraph:
“Spain has many attractions —delicious cuisine, a balmy climate, sublime music and a fascinating history. And now it can add another accolade: it has just been named the healthiest country in the world.”
I thought it appropriate to share the recipe for this powerful salad, barley and kale salad with pine nuts and cherries, to accompany this news —I will explain why later.
Rice stuffed red peppers, pimientos de arroz, is one of the dishes of my childhood and young adulthood (or the period prior to my moving to North America after I married). Medium grain Valencian rice, seasoned and cooked in a tomato based thick broth, bakes to perfection inside sweet red peppers that roast until almost caramelized.
It is a fact that many families in Spain make an effort at Christmas time to buy a leg of ham, and not just any ham, but the best ham they can afford. That might seem like a strange concept for my American audience, but most Spaniards would understand it. In Spain you can buy jamón serrano, cured serrano ham, of various qualities, all the way up to the crown jewel, what is considered a luxury product, a leg of Iberian ham.
I know, I know, two posts in a row with recipes for fish. Not only fish, but mollusks, so popular where I come from, Spain’s Mediterranean coast, but not so where I live, Indiana. There’s an explanation, I’m still on detoxification mode from sweets after Christmas, and hard on the Mediterranean diet, the tried and true. But don’t fret: Valentines is around the corner, then a number of family birthdays, and soon after, Easter. Lots and lots of opportunities for sweets. So tag along with me, follow the Mediterranean diet, and your heart (and your waist) will thank you.
