Grilled Chicken and Barley Salad

Ugh....summer cooking. I just....don't. It's so much work. Fortunately, this one was easy, and only seems like it takes a long time. Most of it is just letting things cook while you watch Netflix in front of the fan. This was also the first time I have cooked with barley. It's pretty good, actually, and takes the same amount of time as regular rice. Original recipe here, which I followed with just a few tweaks.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast, fat cut off
1/2 cup barley*
1.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup fresh or thawed corn
3/4 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup minced red onion
2-3 Tlbs cooked, chopped bacon**
10-12 leaves of basil, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Vinaigrette/Marinade
3/4 cup cherry tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1.5 Tlbs olive oil
1 Tlbs water
1 Tlbs red wine vinegar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tlbs red onion
salt and pepper

Directions:
Put the marinade ingredients in the food processor and process until smooth. Put 1/4 of vinaigrette/marinade into a plastic bag, add the chicken breast, and toss it in the fridge. Set aside the other 3/4 of the vinaigrette. Heat the broth and barley until it's boiling, then put a lid on the pan and turn it to low. Let it simmer, untouched, for 40 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat and fluff the barley with a fork. Drain well and let it cool. Put the corn, cherry tomatoes, onion, bacon, basil, salt and pepper in a bowl. When the barley is cooled down, add it and the remaining vinaigrette to the bowl and toss well. Meanwhile, grill  the chicken until done, then let it sit for a few minutes before serving.

*I used pearl barley.
**I used previously cooked turkey bacon because I had it, she used 3-4 strips.

This was good, and like I said, really easy. I probably spent 10 minutes doing hands on chopping and prep and it was a good summer dish.

Rating: 4/5
Why? I'm not sure how I feel about the marinade being used on the chicken. I might not do that next time.