Favorite farro salad

Y'all have got to try this salad. It is one of my favorite creations! Farro with gold beets, spiced pecans, feta and chive-sage oil dressing. Unreal! It sings of freshness and fall. The farro is both chewy and tender, the chives are the main vocals while the sage sings back-up. The gold beets both glow and add a sweet, earthy nuttiness. The interplay of cayenne and maple syrup atop the pecans is sublime. And the feta lends a creamy tang that makes the whole even better.

Meatless Monday review

Because my husband and children are wildly carnivorous and the holidays are wildly without regimen, I was lax about Meatless Mondays while we were on break. A mostly vegetarian myself, I stuck with it but could easily do so every day so that hardly counts. In any case, yesterday we resumed our MM tradition, and as T looked over our dinner, I saw the familiar eyebrow raise of skepticism and "oh, shoot." More often than not he ends up enjoying our meatless meals and so, by and large, I ignore any protestations. I'm cooking after all! Last night I decided to make a warm farro-based salad into which I stirred caramelized rutabaga cubes, goat cheese, toasted pecans, and this wonderful roasted leek and garlic dressing that came to me while cooking. In essence, I roasted the leeks and garlic until they were super soft, hovering somewhere on the solid side of liquid. Then I dumped them into a food processor and added the extra oil from the rutabagas, the juice and zest of a clementine and a knob of crème fraîche. When that was whipped into a "dressing" of sorts, I stirred it into the warm farro mixture until it was evenly distributed.

T didn't love this dish, but I really enjoyed it and felt both fulfilled and virtuous while doing so.