Pearled Barley with Roasted Onions and Butternut Squash

Warning!  If you are doing any sort of food cleansing fast, please avoid looking at the pictures and recipe linked below.  Another warning!  These photos do not do this meal justice.

This was the experience Matt had today at school when warming up his leftovers for lunch.  He said a couple of his coworkers are doing a cleansing fast and when they saw him warming up this dish, they basically started asking him all sorts of questions about it.  When he described the dish by saying "roasted butternut squash, roasted onions, and pearled barley topped with goat cheese," it is hard to blame them for drooling.  

Here is the link to the original recipe from 101cookbooks.com: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/farro-and-roasted-butternut-squash-recipe.html  

As you will see from the link, the original recipe calls for farro instead of barley.  Because I didn't have any farro but I did have some leftover pearled barley, I just did some ingredient swapping.  From what I can tell farro and barley are often used as substitutions for each other.  And man, let me tell you, this dish turned out nutty delicious!  Barley has a very nutty texture and taste which compliments the butternut squash so well.  Topped this dish with goat cheese and you've got yourself a little slice of heaven.  I have already told my mother that this is going to be a perfect recipe to compliment our Thanksgiving dinner.  It is a little different from the a more traditional rice and/or butternut squash dishes out there but definitely a winner!