Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

Smells like pesto. Having discovered farro through  this salad , I was interested in trying it in other recipes. I found  this recipe on Smitten Kitchen  and it seemed like a good idea, given the explosion of tomatoes and basil in the garden right now. Given the basil, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan, it tastes like pesto. Like a warm, hearty, bowl of grains with pesto, plus sweetness from the slow-cooked onion and tomato. This might be a summer-only recipe, since I think it really needs fresh tomato and basil. But I will be making this regularly until tomato season is over, and I'll look forward to bringing it out again next summer. My only changes are using black pepper instead of red pepper flakes (because I like it better) and slightly reducing the amount of water, since I had a lot of cooking liquid left at the end when I made it with the original proportions. One of the comments that I read in the Smitten Kitchen review section for this recipe...

Next time maybe I'll put the seeds under the bacon so they meld more with the farro? I came to this recipe in a circular pattern of events, and it is one of my new favorites. It started with lunch at the fantastic  Camas Country Mill , which is a magical place with magical bread and, on that visit, this magical salad. I loved it so much and I thought about trying to make it at home, but I wasn't sure where to start with the dressing and also I've never cooked farro, so I was willing to leave it as a magical memory and hope to see it again on a future return. Except the pepitas. Miles ate many of them off of my salad and he loved them so much that he asked me to buy some. So I bought a big tub of pepitas the next day. And in true toddler fashion, by the next day he didn't like them anymore.  This led to a Pinterest search for recipes involving pepitas. And what did I find before my very eyes?  This salad from food52 . Now, maybe they stole it from Camas ...