Bonus Recipe: Insalata di Farro with Herbed Chevre

This recipe is perfect for the FREE Laura Chenel Chevre and head of butter lettuce you can get this week (Aug. 24 – 30, 2011) with your coupon with your purchase of $30 or more!

One bite of this salad, with layers of marinated bell peppers, lightly dressed butter lettuce, olives,  chewy farro and creamy, tangy goat cheese, and we knew we had to share it with our customers. The recipe comes to us courtesy of Donato Scotti of Donato Enoteca in Redwood City.  

Donato’s restaurant is one of my favorite Italian eateries — you can tell he puts his heart & soul into each dish. This salad will knock your socks off! Don’t forget to print your coupon this week to get the free butter lettuce and goat cheese, which is made in Sonoma.

Serves 4. Recipe follows.

Left: Donato Scotti of Donato Enoteca in downtown Redwood City, located at 1041 Middlefield Road. Right: Insalata di Farro with Herbed Chevre.

For the salad

• 8 oz butter lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 5 oz cooked farro (recipe below)
• 7oz  marinated bell peppers (recipe below)
• 20 ea black olives (gaeta, kalamata or similar) Find them at the Sigona’s olive bar!
• 4 medallions of goat cheese rolled in herbs (recipe below)
• 3 TBL red wine vinegar
• 8 TBL Sigona’s Fresh Press olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

Toss the lettuce, olives and farro in a bowl with the vinegar, olive oil and salt. Place on a serving platter top with marinated peppers and last with the medallion of goat cheese. Buon appetito!

The farro

• 1 package of Umbrian farro
• 4 quart of water
• Salt
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Olive oil

Boil the water w salt and the cloves of garlic. After aprox 20 minutes or when the farro is cooked drain and cool on a sheet pan drizzled with olive oil.

The peppers

• 2ea red bell pepper
• 2ea yellow bell pepper
• Olive oil
• Salt
• 3 leaf of fresh basil
• Fresh oregano

Rub some oil on the peppers and cook them over live fire (gas stove is fine) til the skin is all black

Place them in a paper bag and sprinkle them with salt.

Seal the bag and let them cool off.

When they are cold peel the skin off, remove the seeds, cut then in strips and marinate the with olive oil, basil and oregano.

The goat cheese

• 1 8oz log of goat cheese (Laura Chenel’s Chevre)
• 3-4 TBL of mix herbs chopped finely (basil, oregano, parsley, etc…..)

Remove the log from the pkg and roll the cheese in the herbs. Wrap with plastic film and let it rest in the refrigerator for few hours. Once done cut the log in ¼ inch thick medallion.