Day 5 and 6: farro is a grain, not a plant.

Day 5: 

Today was pretty boring, I basically had the exact same food as Day 4. 

Breakfast: nothing. 

Lunch: homemade granola with soy milk (found out that shaking the soy milk is crucial to the taste... I like soy milk much better now), coffee with soy milk. 

Dinner: leftovers from earlier in the week (salad from a few days ago and pizza leftovers from the night before). 

Total time cooking: about 25 minutes. 

Day 6: 

Breakfast: homemade granola with soy milk, coffee with soy milk.

Lunch: breakfast sandwich from Starbucks (I love these sandwiches) and a caramel macchiato. 

Dinner: breaking out the Clean Slate cookbook again, I decided to make farro and sweet potato salad with some chicken on the side. 

Funny story regarding farro: I have never encountered farro before. In the picture in the cookbook it looked A LOT like barley, so I put farro on my grocery list and just assumed it was some sort of leafy green that was also in the photo (nope, that was the dill). I managed to find dill, but was having some trouble locating farro in the produce section at Trader Joes, so I asked a helpful produce clerk who was baffled at what on earth "farro" was after I had described it to him as a leafy green. He asked another stocking clerk. She was just as baffled. No worries, I said, I will just continue my search. 

In meandering around the store, I stumbled upon the rice and grains section, and remembered I needed brown rice (specifically short grain brown rice) for another dish I plan on cooking later this week. In looking for short grain brown rice (yes, not long grain brown rice short grain - another elusive ingredient) and my eyes landed on a small bag of a grain that looked a lot like barley but was labeled "farro" (specifically, I purchased the precooked farro so all I had to do was simmer it for about 10 minutes). I found the farro. One part of me wanted to run back to the clerk and yell YAY I FOUND IT!! But, then I realized I would expose myself to having looked for a grain in the produce section, and I thought better of it (I am just hoping they don't recognize me the next time I enter the store). I have since learned via a quick google search farro is an ancient grain. I don't really know what makes ancient grains so great, but I am a fan of all of the ancient grains I have tried so far. Also, unlike white quinoa (another ancient grain or so I have been told), I cooked farro in only water and it tasted great (when I have cooked white quinoa  in just water, it does NOT agree with my palate). 

Sidenote: my grocery store this weekend was stocked FULL of parsnips, which I needed for one of last week's salads. Of course. 

Despite my struggle with farro, the dish actually turned out GREAT. I loved it! Which is good, because I made enough to feed a basketball team. 

There was quite a lot of cook time today because I made so much food, but it will most likely last me the entire week, which will over the week save me a lot of time. 

Cook and Cleanup time: 2.5 hours.