Farro Salad with Apple

As always I used this salad as an inspiration only... or I did not do a very good job following instructions - lol! However you want to put it, mine was a bit different, but still tasted great! Here is the original recipe from the delish magazine.

My first issue was I literally could not find Farro, even at Bulk Barn. So I will have to see if any of my local cultural grocery stores has them, maybe this grain is used more in Middle Eastern or Mediterranean cooking? Do you know or have you used it? My plan was to substitute with pearl barley, but turned out I only had about 1/2 cup of that, so I also made Isreali couscous, even thought that is totally different I just wanted a carb in this salad. I mixed up romaine lettuce with arugula, fresh parsley, fresh basil and chopped green onions (as I had no shallots)... then of course I read the instructions and found out a huge part of the recipe was making the shallots crispy - doh! See what I said about not following instructions - geesh! To the top we each added a spoonful of barley for a chewier texture and how much ever couscous we wanted to make it a bit hardier.

My 19 year old son and I wanted a protein so cooked up some chicken breast and added the apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, pepper and honey to that while it simmered. We put the cooked chicken on top of our lettuce and couscous with the liquid from the pan as our dressing. We loaded the top with chopped apples and pears, then sprinkled with toasted pecans, which I have a whole jar of (we eat them all the time on parfaits) and finally grated fresh parmesan.