Did you know that we’re kitchen superheros???? NO?!?!?! Oh, well, we have to tell you about how we saved Dinner #3, Chickpea, Sweet Potato and Apple Farro Salad, in our 7 Vegan Meals for $30 from Trader Joe’s challenge from Spoon University!

We’ve been following the meal “plan” from Spoon University to make 7 vegan dinners from $30 of Trader Joe’s groceries. The first 2 dinners were FABULOUS! Tonight’s??? Well…we had a bit of a problem.

We were excited to have a dish that included farro. Farro is in the wheat family. It’s a whole grain that is usually made of spelt, emmer of einkorn (all hulled). We love having it in soups and salads. 

Our plan was to make the Chickpea, Sweet Potato and Apple Farro Salad. We actually were going to use barley instead, as we bought Trader Joe’s 10-Minute Barley. However, Carlo was feeling like having farro. We had some, but not a 10-minute variety and not from Trader Joe’s. The one we used required us to soak the farro overnight. Well, that resulted in a milky, lumpy hot mess. We could have just made barley, but our stomachs didn’t want to make the time investment of even 10 more minutes.

The recipe itself was simple. The ingredients were all listed (YEAH!) We could do without the farro since it only needed 1/3 of the noted ingredients. It seemed weird to cook so much to only use a 1/3 of it, but whatever. We’re getting used to Spoon University’s instructions not being clear. It doesn’t mean the dish won’t be good. 

We replaced the sweet potato with butternut squash, and the arugula with spinach. Honestly, this recipe didn’t need the farro. We got plenty with other ingredients. In fact, we both said the texture of the farro would have taken away from the dish. The apples were so nice with the squash and spinach for crunch that we didn’t miss the farro.

Now, being that we’re following 21 Day Fix, we eliminated the oil. We bumped up the lemon to the juice of 2 small ones. We also went with cumin and black pepper for spice. There was no added salt, but there was some avocado action!

We really liked this recipe and would probably have it again. Next time, we’ll be sure to use Trader Joe’s 10-Minute Farro!

See last night’s dinner, DIY Sofrita Bowl!

Come back and see how we approach the Protein-Packed Kale Salad With Tempeh and Lemon Dressing.