When I came home from the beach, I wanted something colorful and high in protein to have on hand for the week. I love these one-dish combos of grain, protein, vegetable, and looked in my pantry at what to use. For grains, my choices were lentils, quinoa, rice or farro. I bought a bag of farro last November and used it in a dish for Thanksgiving. I enjoyed it, but actually hadn’t cooked with it since. Might as well use some farro!

While we were on vacation, we actually ate in a lot during our weekend at the beach, but it was all undocumented for here. We had cereal/yogurts for breakfast or eggs/bagels. Lunch was a big buffet of build-your-own salad or sandwich with leftovers. Dinner was a lot of meat one night and a lot of fish one night. And one night was at a restaurant. Cooking for 12 was a lot of food, but eating in made it very affordable.

Back to farro–it is a grain that looks like barley, but cooks like rice. It has a little bit of a chewy texture, and takes the flavor of anything you pair it with. One cup of farro has 100 calories, 4 g protein, 3.5 g fat. The whole dish below is one cup of uncooked farro. It goes a long way.

With the farro, I decided to make a Mediterranean inspired dish to serve cold on top of a salad for lunch. Mediterranean to me is olives, feta, and tomatoes. I subbed a red bell pepper for the tomato so it would be less mushy, and added mushrooms and corn to add some more vegetables and give it some color.

That is how this dish came to be.

Mediterranean Farro Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 C uncooked farro, rinsed and drained
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/3 C feta crumbles
• 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1/4 C black olives, chopped
• 1/4 C yellow corn (I used from a frozen bag)
• 3 button mushrooms, chopped
• 1 T EVOO
• 1 T Balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 lemon, juiced

Instructions:

• In a strainer, pour in farro and run under water to rinse.
• In a medium sauce pan, bring together the farro and water. Add dash of salt. Bring water to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes, until farro is fork tender.
• Drain farro into strainer and pour back into the saucepan.
• While the farro is simmering, combine garlic, red bell pepper, olives, corn and mushrooms in a small skillet and saute until soft. Season only with cooking spray. (other seasonings come in the dressing)
• When vegetables are soft, pour into farro sauce pan and stir together.
• Add feta cheese once dish is somewhat cool so it doesn’t melt immediately.
• In a small bowl, combine olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and lemon juice and stir to combine. Pour into sauce pan and stir well.
• Plate to serve hot, or refrigerate to serve cold. Toss before eating.

I loved the bite from the farro and the Mediterranean flavors from the olives and feta. Red onion would be a great addition too, I just didn’t want to chop an onion. The yellow corn adds a nice color, and it’s a really healthy dish of a hearty grain and vegetables.

Great as a side dish or the highlight of a meal with more vegetables.

What are you into this summer?