Barley and Pomegranate Salad

This is another great recipe from Plenty. It's super light and flavorful and perfect after a weekend of eating too much. The pomegranate seeds add such a nice, sweet pop. Looking forward to eating leftovers for lunch this week.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup barley

6 stalks celery, leaves removed and saved, in a small dice

1/4 cup olive oil

3 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 small garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

2/3 tsp ground allspice

salt and pepper

3 tbsp chopped dill

3 tbsp chopped parsley

seeds from 2 large pomegranates

Roasted Chicken Thighs with Broccoli and Carrots

After a mini vacation in California eating everything in sight, I wanted a nice, homey meal. I love this recipe for roasted chicken and wanted to change it up with broccoli and carrots. Yum! It's easy, pretty healthy, and a great weeknight meal. Your house will smell amazing when you cook it. 

Easy Roasted Shrimp with Garlic and Chorizo

This recipe is so simple! It's a great snack hors d'oeuvre from Blue Ribbon cookbook. They have you just toss it all together and bake it at once, but I think it would do better with a little time to marinate. We had it in the winter, but I think this would be a great summer dish to eat outside with some rose. 

Serves 2

Ingredients:

8-10 medium size shrimp (or fewer if you can find jumbo shrimp), peeled and deveined - leave the tail on for looks

1 small dried Spanish chorizo, cut into 1/4" half moons

2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

olive oil

salt and pepper

fresh parsley, roughly chopped

Roasted Eggplant with Buttermilk Yogurt Sauce and Pomegranate

My friend Alice got me Ottolenghi's Plenty cookbook for my birthday (thank you, Al!!). I couldn't wait to test it out. I made the roasted eggplant last weekend and it's delicious. The soft roasted eggplant is tangy and almost meaty tasting from the bits of char, and the buttermilk yogurt sauce, za'atar, and pomegranate are such a great mix of flavors. The sweetness of the pomegranate is really nice. We had this as a main because we had a huge lunch, but I think it would also be great as a side dish to some grilled meat. Also, very pretty presentation! 

The picture is also the cover of the book. So pretty.