Week 65: Cold Farro Salad

I am always in search of wonderful new grains to use in the kitchen. I love making cold salads that I can keep in the refrigerator and eat for lunch throughout the workweek. Quinoa has been a standby ever since Costco started selling large bags of the organic stuff for a great price. A couple of weeks ago I saw that the same brand was selling farro in bulk at Costco, so I snatched some up. I didn't really use a recipe, but just threw some stuff in there that I already had in the fridge, and I knew would work. The finished product was a grain that was nutty and chewy, which was great with cold, crisp vegetables. I enjoyed this with cheese; some days goat and some days feta.

Year of Yum Rating: 3 1/2 STARS

INGREDIENTS
1 cup farro
3 cups water
bell pepper (I used the miniature ones from Costco that come in bags with red, orange, and yellow), diced
1 seedless cucumber, diced
olive oil
lemon
salt
pepper
cheese if desired

DIRECTIONS
Cook the farro according to package directions. It called for 3 cups of liquid to one cup of dry farro. I put some salt in the water while it was cooking. I also ended up with extra water in the pot after I deemed the farro to be done, so I just threw it in a strainer.

When dicing the peppers and cukes, I scraped the "guts" out of the cucumber even though it was seedless. I didn't want my salad to get too wet and soupy.

Squeeze the juice of one lemon, and add olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste. Toss with the farro and veggies. Let chill in the refrigerator before serving.