Farro and White Bean Soup

Michelle prepared 4 recipes for this session of South Arm Older Adults Cooking Club.

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The first recipe is Farro (or Tuscan Spelt) and White Bean Soup. Making soup is a great way to use leftovers. This soup is a complete meal with grains, beans and veggies.

Farro is a grain related to wheat that is lower in gluten and has a different flavour and texture. You can use spelt or barley in place of farro.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups cannellini beans (white beans), soaked overnight and cooked or approximate 3 cups canned
  • 1 1/2 cups spelt or farro, soaked 4 to 8 hours if not pearled
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1 celery stalk, diced
  • 1 sprig fresh rosemary, remove stem and chop
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 cup chopped tomatoes, peeled and seeded or 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
  • salt and pepper to taste

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P/S: we substituted the onion with extra garlic as onion was missing from the groceries list.

Source: South Arm Older Adults Cooking Club

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How to cook Farro

Besides the Orange and Pecan Salad with Red Onion Dressing, Michelle also prepared another side dish for the South Arm Seniors Kitchen. The seniors had expressed their interest in learning  more about grains.

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Michelle brought a grain called Farro to make a simple side dish. There are other grains which are very similar to farro like emmer, spelt and einkorn. Barley also has similar characteristic as farro and so, you may substitute farro with barley in recipes. Farro can be eaten plain or used in salad and soups.

Here is the recipe for a spelt salad and some barley soups (Herbed Lentil and Barley Soup, Hearty Bean Barley Soup, Barley Yogurt Soup and Mushroom,  Barley and lentil Soup)  that I had blogged before.

Farro is sold dried and is prepared by cooking in water for about an hour or more until soft, but still crunchy (it is recommended first soaking the farro over night). The ratio of water to grain to cook the farro is 2 to 1.

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The farro that Michelle brought is the pearled version which takes a much shorter time to cook, about 15 minutes. Michelle bought it from … (more…)

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