Monday, October 5, 2015

Chicken Farro Salad with Candied Chickpeas

It looked prettier before we devoured half of it. :)
This is an incredible, substantive salad with complex fall flavors.
A bag of mixed greens
A store roasted rotisserie chicken
1/4 cup Blue cheese
2 tbsp dried cranberries
1 large honeycrisp apple, sliced thinly
2 large oranges, peeled and divided like Christmas oranges
1/2 cup uncooked farro
2 cans of chickpeas
1/4 cup brown sugar
EVOO
apple cider vinegar
Chicken stock

Drain and rinse chickpeas. Dry them thoroughly on a paper towel. Preheat your oven to 325. Line a baking sheet with tin foil. Mix dried chickpeas with 1 tbsp of EVOO, brown sugar, and salt and pepper. Spread on baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally until amber in color.

While chickpeas are browning, start farro cooking on the stove top according to package directions, substituting chicken stock for water. Once it's done, let it cool down.

Cut rotisserie chicken into large slices, like you're carving a turkey. Get all the meat off the chicken, but keep it in large pieces.

After you've sliced your apples and oranges, toss them together so the orange acid keeps the apples from turning brown.

Cover a large, wide bowl or platter with the mixed greens. Arrange chicken pieces, fruit, farro and chickpeas on top. Sprinkle blue cheese and cranberries over that. Serve with dressing drizzled over all. We dressed each plate individually, but if you're not planning on having leftovers, you can dress it all at once.

The dressing is
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
6 tablespoons evoo
lawry's and pepper

Whisk together. You may want to double the dressing.