Harvest Salad (with Barley)

I don't have many varieties of grains in storage, mostly because I don't know how to use them. I made this salad this week and everyone actually ate it, so now I have at least one way to use barley. It's good for you, too. You could probably use dehydrated apples and green onions if you wanted, but I didn't.

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 Tbsp. Honey or Honey Powder
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice

Mix together with a wisk. Add:

1 carrot, shredded (about 1/3 cup)
2 unpeeled apples, chopped (about 1 cup) - whatever variety of apple your family likes
1/4 cup sliced green onion
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup corn (if you use frozen corn, thaw it. If you use canned corn, drain it.)
2 cups cooked barley (the kind I used said 'pearl barley' on the package)

Toss it all together and serve.

Cooking the barley took about an hour, so plan ahead a little.

And the book of the week is: The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
My Ward book group read this book. It's a memoir of Jeanette's life. She had it really hard, but the book isn't whiny. I actually found myself laughing at a lot of the stuff in the book, even though it doesn't seem like it should be funny. Some bad bad things happened to this girl. It made me really evaluate how well I'm doing as a Mom. Fortunately, compared to these people, I stack up pretty well. Her dad has quite the potty mouth, and a few boys try to put her in rather compromising situations, so it's another book not for young readers. However, when my teenagers whine about what a bad Mom I am, I'm going to hand them this book and say "Read this. Let's talk when you're done." It was definitely worth reading.