It was a vegetarian version, which I kicked off by sweating some chopped red peppers, onions and garlic. In went the pearl barley, along with some vegetable stock, bay leaves, turmeric, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper. About half an hour later, when the barley was tender, I added some frozen peas, black olives and halved cherry tomatoes. After a few minutes more cooking, and a scattering of chopped fresh rosemary, it was ready to eat.
It looked quite Spanish, with the sunny yellow and red colours, but I expect a Spaniard would have been horrified. It certainly lacked the drier "crust" at the bottom of the pan that some say you should get with a real paella, but this didn't bother me. I should have used saffron to be a bit more authentic, but my parsimony won the day and with the other spices it just didn't seem to need it, either for taste or colour. Next time I might try it with broad beans instead of the peas.
Anyway, it was just the thing for a rainy November night - filling, warming, and spicy. In fact we both had seconds. I'll definitely be making this one again.
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