Farro Salad

I'm a fan of Deb Perelman's blog, Smitten Kitchen. It's actually one of the few blogs I still read regularly; she writes in an entertaining manner, and her recipes are uniformly successful. Because I knew the recipes would be solid, I made sure to get a copy of her cookbook and read it from cover to cover. Several recipes jumped out at me, screaming, "make me! make me!" One of those was this salad of farro with carrots, parsnips, feta, and mint, all bathed in a dressing of lemon juice, harissa, and honey. And there you have the recipe. It's really simple and really good. The farro is pleasantly chewy, the root vegetables are sweet, the mint aromatic, and the dressing and cheese really liven up the dish. I think this will become a warm-weather staple in my house, once I can figure out how to cook the root veg without turning on the oven. Perhaps pan sauteeing over high heat, maybe charring the veg first over a gas burner.

I'm just going to paraphrase the recipe here, telling you what I did. If you want the exact recipe, you'll just have to buy the book!

Farro Salad with Carrots and Other Good Stuff

1 pound of parsnips, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 pound of carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
Seems like a lot of veg, but they shrink down to nothing. Toss the veg with olive oil and salt and spread out onto two foil-lined baking sheets. Roast 20 minutes at 400°F, stir, then roast an additional 10 minutes. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

8 ounces of dry farro
Add farro to 2 1/4 cups water or stock with a big pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and cover pot. Cook 35 minutes, or until tender and fluffy. (I used Wegman's brand farro and it was done in about 25 minutes. YMMV.) Cover pot and let sit for 10 mins or so to allow farro to absorb remaining water (I poured it out.) Fluff with a fork.

Make a dressing with 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, a big pinch of cumin, 2 teaspoons of honey, and harissa to taste. (I have dried harissa powder in a jar and it's very mild so I used 2 teaspoons. Other brands will be uber hot, so use judiciously.) Season with salt and set aside. Have more lemon ready, in case you need more oompfh.

Toss the cooked farro with the dressing and add the veg. Toss again. Add a big handful of crumbled feta cheese and another handful of chopped fresh mint. Stir and taste for seasoning. You might need more salt and or lemon juice, as I did.

I served the salad with boneless skinless chicken thighs that I had marinated in a combo of salt, harissa, cumin, and olive oil (pinches of each for 3 thighs). Browned on both sides in a bit of olive oil, then turned down the heat and cooked until done, about 20 minutes total.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Gluten-Free Millet Salad with Asian Flavors

Necessity is the mother of invention. So are leftovers.

A thorough inventory of our seemingly-full fridge revealed lots of bits and pieces of vegetables. A box of cremini mushrooms, a dozen or so brussels sprouts starting to go brown, and a handful of cherry tomatoes were among the items needing to be used quickly, and I couldn't really think of a dish that would use all of them successfully. Maybe something with pasta, but that seemed too easy.

Up for a challenge, I decided to also use up some of the ancient grains I had recently purchased for experimental purposes. There were full or partial bags of amaranth, multicolored quinoa, and millet in the cupboard, and since I was feeling in an Asian food mood, I went with the millet. While one normally associates Asia with rice, millet is also an important food crop on that continent.

I threw together a peanut sauce with ingredients we usually have on hand, cooked the sprouts and shrooms, and tossed them with some cooked millet. It made a nice accompaniment to some oven-baked chicken, and lots of leftovers for lunches.

Millet Salad with Asian Flavors

1 cup millet
2 heaping tablespoons smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons agave syrup
1 tablespoon tamari
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 tablespoon Chinese broad bean paste (doubanjiang)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1" piece of fresh ginger, grated
Veg of your choice (I used 8 ounces of sauteed sliced mushrooms, a handful of halved cherry tomatoes, and 12 brussels sprouts, trimmed, cut into quarters, and sauteed until soft, but you can use anything you wish, from sugar snap peas to jarred red bell pepper pieces)
3 scallions, chopped
Handful cilantro, chopped
Roasted peanuts for garnish

Place millet and 2 cups of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover pot and let simmer 10-15 minutes, until all water is absorbed. Fluff millet with a fork and pour into a bowl to cool.

Combine next eight sauce ingredients in a bowl and stir to blend. Add a few tablespoons of water to loosen to a mayonnaise-like consistency.

Once millet is cool, stir in sauce, tossing to coat every grain of millet. Stir in your veggies of choice. Garnish with chopped scallions, cilantro, and peanuts.

Serves 8.



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Book Review: Bob's Red Mill Everyday Gluten-Free Cookbook

Doesn't that look good? It's a dish of Brussels sprouts, dried cranberries, pecans, and sorghum.

I've seen quite a few gluten-free cookbooks come across my desk recently, but none have been as comprehensive as Camilla Saulsbury's new Bob's Red Mill Everyday Gluten-Free Cookbook: 281 Delicious Whole-Grain Recipes. While 100 percent of the recipes in this book are gluten free, it reads more like a primer for incorporating ancient grains (oats, amaranth, quinoa, sorghum, etc.) into one's diet. The whole gluten-free aspect is more of a happy bonus. In other words, this book is a great kitchen tool for everyone who wants to switch up their diet a bit, not just for the gluten-intolerant.

Unlike other gluten-free cookbooks, Saulsbury doesn't resort to using gums and stabilizers to give her recipes more familiar textures. Instead, she sings the praises of whole grains, many of which are completely foreign to most Americans.

It's not a vegan cookbook, nor diet-y in any way. Every dish looks really terrific, so of course we had to try a few ourselves, just to make sure.

The first dish we tried is a dressing of Brussels sprouts, pecans, dried cranberries, and whole grains. We chose to use sorghum. Sorghum takes a heck of a long time to cook. Even after one hour, the little round grains were still on the chewy side. But the combination of flavors in the dish, while fairly simple, were really delicious. We ate it as a warm salad entree, but you can serve it as a side dish. It would make a perfect addition to a roast chicken dinner, and would actually work really nicely as a Thanksgiving side, too.

Next we tried spiced bar cookies made with oats and dates, because we had all of the ingredients on hand: dates, coconut oil, teff flour (left over from our attempt at Ethiopian injera), and oatmeal. The flavors were terrific - malty teff and cardamom played really nicely with the sweet and chewy dates - but the bars are a bit dry and crumbly. They're pretty good crumbled over a dish of ice cream, though, and would make a nice combination of flavors to top a fruit cobbler.

Though neither of us are gluten intolerant, we're really enthused about Bob's Red Mill Everyday Gluten-Free Cookbook overall. We've even invested in some amaranth and quinoa so we can try more whole grain eating.

If you can't find Bob's Red Mill products in your local grocery store (we've found some, but not all), you can order them online from Bob's, or even at Nuts.com.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



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Freekeh with Grape Leaves and Feta

Browsing the very excellent food site Food 52 the other day, I found an intriguing recipe for something the recipe writer called a grape leaf pilaf. It wasn't actually a pilaf, as she directs the rice should be cooked "as instructed on package," which means boiled or steamed. I thought I might like to make it as an actual pilaf, browning the rice with onions then simmering it in a seasoned broth. We already had a jar of grape leaves in the cupboard, which I had purchased for an abandoned project. All we needed was the feta and herbs, and some sort of protein to go with it. Lamb seemed to make sense, and we had that, too.

Once I had everything together, I realized that rice would make a better accompaniment for the chicken dish I planned to make the following day. I found a bag of freekeh, a roasted green wheat product, in the cupboard (lord, there's so many weird things in there) and thought I could give that a spin. I had never worked with the stuff before, hadn't even tasted it, so rather than make pilaf, I cooked it in the rice cooker. The package indicated that it should be cooked like rice, with twice as much water as grain. I still wasn't going to have a pilaf, so I'm not calling it that.

The freekeh smelled wonderful as it was cooking, and tasted rich and nutty. The texture is a little crunchy, like brown rice or bulgur. It really was the perfect grain to use with tangy grape leaves and feta cheese and made the dish into something far more interesting than boring old steamed rice could have done.

For the meaty aspect of the dish, I made meatballs out of a mixture similar to this one, only without the nuts or spices other than salt, pepper, and garlic. I also roasted some grape tomatoes to add a bit of sweetness to the otherwise tangy meal. It was riiiillly good. Hearty, yet light, full of flavors and textures. Definitely a keeper. The freekeh would go well with chicken or shrimp, too.

Freekeh with Grape Leaves and Feta

1 cup freekeh
1 onion, chopped
Olive oil
1 cup chopped grape leaves from a jar
1/4 cup chopped dill leaves
1/4 cup chopped mint leaves
1 lemon, juiced
Salt and pepper
Crumbled feta cheese

Cook freekeh as you would rice (or according to package directions).

While freekeh is cooking, saute onion in a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt until translucent and just beginning to brown. Add chopped grape leaves, herbs (reserving some for garnish), and lemon juice. When freekeh is done cooking, add it to the pan of onions and grape leaves. Stir well to combine. Taste for seasoning and add freshly ground pepper and a bit of salt, if needed. (The grape leaves are quite salty, so you might not need to add any additional.)

Before serving, drizzle freekeh with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle on the feta and reserved herbs. Serve hot, cold, or at room temperature.

Posted on Minxeats.com.