Mushroom Barley Risotto

On the weekend my family made chili for dinner. I am not a fan of beans, so I decided to make myself something different. I looked through the cupboards and the fridge to see what there was that I could have when I stumbled upon some barley and some mushrooms. They first thing that came to mind was to make a mushroom risotto. I was almost disappointed when I found out we had less than half a cup of left over chicken stock. I looked in the pantry and we had bullion cubes. These are dried soup stock cubes. We had cubes for both vegetable stock and mushroom stock. Again I though perfect combination. So here's the recipe for this wonderful dish I created for my dinner.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 a cup of barley
-  cups of water
- 1/4 of a vegetable bullion cube
- 1/4 of a mushroom bullion cube
- 5 white cremini mushrooms
- 1 oyster mushroom
- 4 dried shitake mushrooms
- warm water
-  shallot
- garlic
- white wine
- olive oil
- butter
- parmesean cheese
- salt and pepper

Directions:

1. In a small pot, bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add the bullion cubes to the water and stir until completely dissolved. Bring down to a simmer.
2. While waiting for the water to boil, place your dried mushrooms into a bowl and cover completely with warm tap water to soak and rehydrate the mushrooms. Let them sit for 5-10 minutes.
3. Slice all mushroom to be about the same size. Pour half of the remaining mushroom water into your stock pot.
4. In a small frying pan, heat up 2 tbsp of olive oil and fry your mushrooms. Add some salt and pepper. When finished, put to the side.
5. Finely dice a shallot and crush your garlic through a garlic press. 
6. In a non stick large frying pan, heat up 3 tbsp of olive and add your shallots. When they start to brown, add your garlic and make sure to stir right away. When you can smell the garlic, add your barley and start to fry. 
7. When the barley has a translucent glow, add enough white wine to cover and stir.
8. When the wine is almost all incorporated, start adding the vegetable/mushroom stock. You want to add about 3/4 cup each time. (just enough so you can see the liquid above the barley). Stirring until liquid is all gone. Repeat this step until the barley has a nice rice texture.
9. When you have finished incorporating your liquid, add 1/2 a tbsp of butter to add creamyness. 
10. Pour some parmesean cheese on top and stir in to thicken the consistency.
11. Add in your mushrooms.
12. Serve and Enjoy

Serves 2 as a main meal
Serves 4 as a side dish

You will see that I did not add any extra salt and pepper at the end and that was because the stock had enough seasoning in it and the parmesean cheese is also salty and a seasoning.

Happy cooking!

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