Winter Veg, Bacon and Pearl Barley Casserole

I'll tell you a little story of a stupid idea I had one sunny Wednesday afternoon, when I thought it would be a brilliant idea to go on a bike ride. Bear in mind that my bike doesn't have any breaks or gears, it's pretty much broken. I get pretty far, and I'm about 40 minutes away from campus, riding down a country road, and then some klunking noise starts going on and the pedals feel weird. My bike had given up on me. For some reason, perhaps it was fate, I carried on walking. After about ten minutes, I came to a garden centre. BUT IT SOLD EVERYTHING. Seriously. My shopping basket comprised of garlic mayo, thai chilli and yoghurt and mint sauces (I could run my own takeaway now), a pack of four wine glasses (we had an esteemed visitor joining us at the weekend so we couldn't have her drinking wine out of our mugs) and, best of all, PEARL BARLEY.

But what is pearl barley? It's some kind of grain apparently. I only bought it because it had a Scottish flag on it and it was making me feel nostalgic of the bird scaring job I had up there (don't judge, it pays well!)

Ingredients - for 2
Pearl Barley - it was 99p for 500g, I think we used about 200g in the recipe.
2 Stock Cubes - Preferably vegetable stock cubes
2 leeks
3 Carrots
2 garlic cloves
Bacon - we used about 4 rashers of smoked back bacon but trimmed the fat. The smokiness makes it taste real good.
Any more winter veg - Since we had some brussel sprouts and kale to use, I threw a handful of each in.
Price per person: £1.03

1) Start off by chopping all your veg up. Soften them with crushed garlic in a pan for a couple of minutes, adding the bacon halfway through (about 5 minutes in).

2) Once the bacon looks cooked and the leeks are softened, add the stock and pearl barley. (The stock should cover the top of the veg.) Leave to simmer for about 25 minutes.

3) After 25 minutes, do a quick taste test to ensure the veg is soft enough and the pearl barley not too hard - it's meant be a soft texture, kinda like rice. If everything's good, serve up!