What I Ate This Weekend

I worked all weekend so I have nothing bookish to say. Since I was working all weekend I needed something to eat at work and I'm tired of soup. I can't believe I said that! And the food at work, well it leaves a lot to be desired. I wanted to make some sort of grain salad that would hold well and I came across a picture on Tastespotting which led me to someones post (cannot remember where) which led me to Closet Cooking and this post which was my inspiration. Mr Closet Cooking has posted loads of farro salads and I was going to do this one with cauliflower and chickpeas, but with a few minor changes. But Whole Foods didn't have cauliflower but did have asparagus so I went with that. Even though the asparagus is from Mexico, at least my kid wasn't going to eat this.

So here's what I started with.



I already had farro, which is kind of expensive, but wheat berries or brown rice would work well here and cost lots less. I had a craving for blue cheese so that was on the ingredient list. I had those walnut pieces in the fridge and toasted them. Those fabulous roasted and marinated tomatoes are from the Whole Foods olive bar and they are out of this world. But you could use sun dried tomatoes, or halved cherry tomatoes, or no tomatoes. Or even, red peppers which Mr Closet Cooking used. Red onions, chickpeas, that's it.

I boiled the farro for around 20-30 minutes and while that was cooking I roasted the asparagus and onions.



And I made the vinaigrette with everything you see here. Okay, not the pineapple. I love using those jam jars to make dressing in. So cute! The jam that comes in them is not bad either.



I then combined everything: farro, roasted veggies, toasted walnuts, drained chickpeas, diced tomatoes, and crumbled blue cheese and tossed it all with the vinaigrette. Here is the final product.

Farro salad with asparagus, chickpeas, and blue cheese



It was really tasty and I didn't mind eating it for three days straight.