Rustic farro soup

I walked into the family room on Saturday to find my husband watching Christina Cooks, a vegan cooking show on public television. Christina was rhapsodising about farro, which I now know, thanks to about.com, "has a long and glorious history: it is the original grain from which all others derive, and fed the Mediterranean and Near Eastern populations for thousands of years." Apparently it doesn't produce large yields and has been mostly replaced with more modern grains. Anyway, Christina was making a farro salad and was pouring on the olive oil and folding in heaps of fresh basil and stuff and it was all looking really good but, we're up to our armpits in snow and ice here, and seeing the fresh basil just made me mad. (I'm starting to get a little cranky about the weather.) She was urging her viewers to try to find farro even though it might be hard. Ken was really into it. I could see he was determined to make farro no matter what, so off we went to Whole Foods to do our part to keep the grain alive. As I was starting my second search of the bulk bins, Ken came running over waving a package of organic farro. Looks like barley, I thought.

After we got home, he went off to find another recipe that didn't involve fresh basil and I started to read the fine (very fine I must say) print on the package, and */%#, you have to soak the stuff for eight hours before you use it. Ken was not discouraged. He really likes Christina and wanted to do as she said.

Well. I've been debating with myself about whether or not to post this recipe because I've been pretty careful to post things that match the theme of "easy." This recipe is easy, no question, but it involves an extra step that means you have to plan ahead. Planning ahead is the part that's not easy. My husband pointed out that soaking something overnight isn't hard. And the result is fantastic, so here goes.

Ken made the soup except for the last part, and then was off to the airport, and I finished the cooking and had it for supper. I must say I was surprised by the incredible flavor. It's fabulous. Make this soup. You won't be sorry. I will also tell you that Ken made his own quick vegetable stock but you can use a ready-made version of low sodium stock.

Rustic farro soup (adapted from a Whole Foods recipe)
7 ounces farro (whole, not cracked, triticum dicoccum)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup carrots, small diced
1/2 cup celery, small diced
1/2 cup yellow onions, small diced
2 tablespoons garlic, minced
8 ounces mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 cup diced tomatoes and juice, canned
1 cup dry red wine
5 cups low sodium veggie broth
crushed red pepper to taste
8 ounces escarole, cleaned and chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped

Rinse and then soak the farro 8 hours or overnight.

In a soup pot, heat the oil on medium and add the carrots, celery, onions and garlic and slowly sauté until the onions are translucent, being careful not to burn the garlic. Add the mushrooms and continue cooking until the mushrooms have released most of their liquid. Add the tomatoes, wine, broth, red pepper and soaked farro. Cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the farro is almost tender, about 30 minutes. Add the chopped escarole, salt and pepper. Simmer about three minutes (just enough to cook the escarole). Add the thyme. Serve piping hot.

note: Good news! I've been doing a bit more research on the Web and several sources say you don't have to soak the farro, and it will cook in about 20-30 minutes - one cup of farro to three cups of water. Christina herself says you don't have to soak it. In fact, I'm finding the information about farro to be quite varied. One site says it's a kind of wheat and another says it has no connection to wheat and is an entirely separate grain. Most sources say it should be firm and chewy, and the method we used for the soup produced a very soft (but very pleasant) result. All sources say that farro is a nutritionally superior food. Since this was my first experience with farro, I'm unable to be more precise about cooking it. I'll have to experiment with the rest of the package and see what happens. Please leave comments about your results or your experience with this grain.

Tuscan stew

As I write this, there is a serious glut of snow and frozen snow outside. I can't even begin to tell you just how much snow there is, but it's ridiculous. (The picture is of my husband standing next to the end of what used to be our driveway.) I know the skiers are thrilled, and it's pretty, but enough is enough. There's lots more on the way and it's too cold. The only thing to do is make soup.

I'm going to give you the "actual" recipe and tell you what I changed. It's really an ideal soup to make in the summer, but it's hearty enough to enjoy on a wintry day as well. With a couple of substitutions, it works as a satisfying meal on a cold, and I mean really cold, winter evening. The recipe calls for a medium zucchini for which I substituted a white turnip, and swiss chard for which I substituted bok choy. I also think escarole or spinach would be a good choice for the chard. (I'm not a big fan of chard, but if this were summer and we had some in our CSA box, I would have used it.) There are also sprigs of fresh rosemary, but if you don't have any, used dried. For the bread, I used a 100% whole wheat baguette from Whole Foods. It was just the right combination of crusty and chewy, but it wasn't stale. I didn't have stock on hand so I used water and miso.


Tuscan Stew
4 to 6 large cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, 1/2 inch dice
2 medium carrots, 1/2 inch dice
1 medium zucchini, sliced (or turnip, 1/2 inch dice)
2 sprigs rosemary (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1/2 cup red wine
1 can diced tomatoes (use fresh tomatoes in the summer)
1 can small white beans
4 cups torn stale crusty bread
chopped swiss chard (or other green like bok choy or escarole)
6 cups stock (or water)
2 level tablespoons red miso (or salt to taste)
olive oil
In a large stock pot (5-6 quarts), saute for a few minutes in 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil, the onion, carrot, zucchini (or turnip) until the onion begins to soften. Add the garlic and cook a minute more. Add the wine and cook 8 minutes. Add the tomato and stock (or water). Bring to a boil then turn down to simmer. If you are using water, put 2 tablespoons miso in a small measuring cup and add a small amount of hot liquid from the pot. Stir to dissolve the miso in the cup then add to the pot. If you are using stock, you may need less miso so taste the soup before dissolving the miso and adding to the pot. Stir in the chopped greens, bread, beans and rosemary. You can add cayenne if you like your stew spicy. Grind fresh pepper over individual bowls.

p.s. I had this soup reheated for lunch the next day at work, and it tasted even better. It was rich and satisfying.

We loved this stew so much we made it twice in one week. The second time, I had my husband make it to "test" the recipe. Because this blog is geared towards fast and easy cooking, I usually use canned beans and such. But cooking beans from scratch results in a richer dish, and while it takes a little more time, it's not really hard. Here's a speedy "no-soak" method for cooking beans. Put one cup of washed beans in the pressure cooker with eight cups of water and bring it to pressure. This takes about ten minutes. Turn it off and let the pressure come down natually. This also takes about 10 minutes. Drain the beans and add eight new cups of cold water. Bring to pressure and cook about 10 minutes. When the pressure comes down, skim out the beans and measure the liquid to have the six cups needed for the recipe. Add more water if needed. Proceed with the rest of the recipe. My husband seasoned the resulting stew with 1/2 teaspoon of salt (add more or less according to taste) instead of miso. He also used a stale loaf of unbleached white sourdough baguette from Trader Joe's. Another great stew.

Now a little caveat. I was attempting to double check the cooking times for pressure cooking the beans so I could be accurate, but around the same time, I received the news that my first little grandchild, a beautiful little girl, had just been born in Seattle. Amidst all the excitement, phone calls, video chats and emails, I kind of lost control of the timing thing. I think I'm close, based on experience, but please forgive me if I've erred! I'll try again in the near future and correct the recipe if needed. In any case, this proves that cooking beans can be easy and requires minimal attention!