This recipe came to me from a fellow shopper who saw I was buying risotto, chickpeas, and cannellini beans. It’s less of a recipe and more of a suggestion of things to combine to make an awesome one-pot dish. For my rendition of it, I used the following ingredients:
- farro (soaked for 6-8 hours)
- chickpeas (soaked for 6-8 hours)
- cannellini beans (cooked previously)
- cauliflower greens (or any type of greens you like)
- mushrooms
- 2 small or 1 medium carrot
- onions
- olive oil
- basil
- thyme (optional)
- garlic
- salt and pepper
- water or broth
Directions:
Dice the onion and saute it with the oil in a pot large enough to hold the soup. While that’s cooking, dice the carrot. When the onions look clear, add in the carrot and stir. Throw in a pinch of salt. Let those cook till soft. At this point, I also threw in some fresh thyme but I’m not sure if that added anything. Dice the mushrooms and put those in also.
When the mushrooms are browned and soft, drain the farro and put it in the pot. Stir for a couple of minutes to toast the farro in the oil and aromatic ingredients. Next, add in the drained chickpeas. Throw in a few teaspoons of salt, and then enough water or broth to cover plus one inch. Cover the pot and let that come to a boil. When it does, turn the heat down to medium low and let it simmer with the cover on. Stir every 10 minutes to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom and add more water if it looks like it’s getting dry.
In the meantime, make pesto out of the basil, garlic, olive oil, and a pinch of salt. I like to do it in the mortar and pestle just so I don’t have to clean the food processor and it’s the proper way to do it. There should be 2-3 tablespoons of pesto. Wash your greens and roughly chop them.
After thirty minutes, check the farro and chickpeas. If they’re soft, go on to the next step. If not, cover and check back in another 10 minutes.
When the farro and chickpeas are cooked, stir in the greens, some more salt and cover to cook. When the greens are wilted and cooked (5-10 minutes) stir in the cooked cannellini beans. If there’s still a lot of liquid in the pot, take the lid off and let it cook off. I left enough liquid so that the ‘risotto’ was still pretty creamy. When the risotto is to your preferred consistency, turn off the heat, add in the pesto and stir. Salt and pepper to taste.
As a final step, you can also stir in freshly grated cheese, but I found that this step was unnecessary since the ‘risotto’ was plenty creamy.
