Blue Apron Meal #2: Warm Farro Salad

As I noted yesterday, we're not really the cooking types although we wouldn't mind being better at it. This was our second meal from Blue Apron; we expect to make the third one early this week (Roasted Acorn Squash with Bulgur).

The meal was for Warm Farro Salad, which was totally new to us. Little Miss Crafty asked me earlier what farro is and I didn't know. Now I know it's some kind of grain, but this was definitely adventurous for us!

The farro and arugula formed the base of the salad and the sauce was made of caramelized fennel, orange, olives and olive oil, and mint. It also included toasted hazelnuts and a garnish of feta and pomegranate seeds.

What my husband and I have discovered is that we simply need more prep time than most people. The cook time was listed as 15-25 minutes, which was accurate (on the longer end), but prep still took us nearly 90 minutes. We watched the YouTube video provided by Blue Apron about how to cut the orange, but it didn't work for us (he made it look easy, but it turned out quite differently for us!).

Again, the portions were giant and we easily could have fed four. We didn't have enough pomegranates or feta leftover for the two additional bowls, but that's because we loaded up on the first round.

This meal was awesome! The mix of flavors was truly perfect - the tang of the fruits with the fresh feta and mint worked really well and it was a lot more filling than you may expect a salad to be (of course it also had a hefty amount of grain included). I would definitely make this again. We don't like olives, but we weren't sure if it would affect the flavor if we changed anything so we followed every step and it all still worked very well for us.

I am keeping this recipe for the future - maybe something we can bring for the holidays? I like that it was very different from the Pasta e Fagioli, but that all the meal choices have been fairly low in calories and healthy. I also like that I never would have made this on my own and may not have ever tried it at a restaurant, so it gave me a new experience. We'll make the last meal early in the week or midweek, although tomorrow we may take the evening to have something fast or get a pizza. I think this is a nice balance, though, for the week - three nights of hearty and home-cooked meals and the other half of the week can be spent on the same old or easy.

It was so yummy! (I wish I knew why my pics are all blurry when they get to the computer.)