Tonight we had a delicious meatless dinner: farro Greek salad with tempeh. I have a minor obsession with photographing my dinner and I received a request for the recipe. So, here it is!
I wasn’t able to find a specific recipe to make my own, so I adapted a few different ones.
First, I cut the tempeh into small cubes. Oftentimes I just stop here and heat the tempeh up a bit, but today, I branched out. I found this Greek Salad Tempeh Wrap recipe so I decided to try out her tempeh technique: place the cut tempeh in a frying pan with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. My tempeh browned a lot faster than the Curvy Carrot’s did. I regularly turned my cubes as they were browning. Once they were browned all over, I added one cup of water and two tablespoons of lemon juice and reduced the heat to medium. Stir occasionally and let all of the water mixture get absorbed (about 10 minutes). Turn off the tempeh and let it cool.
While the tempeh is simmering, put on a pot of water for the farro. Bring it to a boil and cook the farro for 10-12 minutes, until it’s ‘al dente.’
While all that is going on on the stove top, start cutting your other ingredients: cherry tomatoes (I used five orange heirloom mini tomatoes), cucumbers (my preference is Persian cucumbers, I used four tonight), thinly slice half of a small red onion and 1/4 cup of pitted kalamata olives and roasted garlic.
The final step: some flavoring. I use the Pioneer Woman’s Greek salad dressing, but add lemon juice and oregano and omit the cut olives.
Brandon isn’t a big olive or feta cheese fan, so rather than buying individual containers of olives and feta, I use the QFC olive bar. I fill up the smallest container in thirds: a third marinated feta, a third roasted garlic and a third pitted kalamata olives.
Where does one find tempeh? Lots of places, it turns out. I buy mine from the refrigerator section at Trader Joe’s for about $2 per package. We’re typically able to get 4 servings out of each package.
What’s my favorite farro? Trader Joe’s again! They sell 10-minute packages of Farro, Bulgur and Barley in the rice section and I absolutely love them. It’s cheap too, like $2 and each container has a generous four servings as a main course.
Happy cooking and enjoy this meatless meal! (Or vegan if you’re like Brandon and don’t add the feta!)
Megan's Island 