It’s actually a Procter Silex slow cooker. I got it as a freebie from the casino where I play. I used the term crockpot generically. It is a relatively small 1.5 quart model, but since I live alone, that seems a good size for me.
I confess ignorance about these, so I checked out the web. Unfortunately, most recipes appear to be for meat and I don’t eat a lot of meat. It did seem that the slow cooker would be a great place to cook grains, though, so I tried some farro which I had written about previously for my first outing with a slow cooker.
My reading about slow cooking indicated not to worry about evaporation as the pot is sealed. So, I put in 2-1/2 cups of water to one cup of farro.
I then added the following:
One celery stalk cut into coins
One carrot cut into coins
One half a rotisserie chicken breast cut into pieces (from Costco)
Some beef broth and chicken broth (from powders)
I cooked it on low for three hours.
The result? Good news and bad news. I didn’t think ahead and realize that the farro would absorb so much of the water, so my soup came out more like a thick stew.
Not to worry, I simply cooked up some more broth and added some of my ‘stew’ to it. Voila, soup.
The result was very tasty. I would consider it to be a totally successful first attempt. A nice recipe stretcher which I often use with soup is to dip slices of sprouted rye bread in it. Good nutritious addition with protein and fiber included.
The farro swelled up nicely in that period and I ended up with about four cups of the grain alone left over along with the celery, carrots and chicken.
In terms of nutrition, 1/2 cup of farro cooked yields: 100 calories, 1 gram of fat, no cholesterol or sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 3.5 grams of fiber and 4 grams of protein.
The same amount of brown rice yields 107.5 calories, 0.9 grams of fat, no cholesterol but 587 mg of sodium, 22.2 grams of carbohydrate, 1.75 grams of fiber and 2.5 grams of protein.
Except for the large amount of sodium in brown rice, they are similar, but farro yields about double the fiber and protein of brown rice.
Tony
Wellness Secrets of a SuperAger 
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These are the pages I was looking for last night, I just wanted to know how to cook the farro in the crockpot plain and I think I see how to do that. Thanks, Jo
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Jo-
Glad you were able to find what you were looking for. Please let me know how it turns out.
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I put one cup of washed Farro into my small crockpot along with 4 cups of water, on high. I checked after an hour and it was almost there but not completely. This is where I made my mistake. I just left it for another half hour,. on low, which probably would have been fine, but that half hour turned into an hour somehow, and its quite mushy, but very good. My wish to cook it plain is so that I might use it differently. This too long cooked one, I think I will put into a very low fat ground beef, add an equal amount of over cooked Farro and seasonings for meatballs. My chances of staying with this plan of mine (to eat more whole grains, and no middle of the store food! Cheers, Jo and Stella the dog!
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Jo-
Thanks very much for sharing. Too bad it wasn’t perfect the first time, but now you know how to get it perfect next time. You are on the right track getting more whole grains into you. Did you catch my post about Love Crunch? I got it at Costco. It is whole grain crunchy granola – that tastes as good as eating chocolate. You can have it for a meal, a dessert or a snack watching TV.
Give Stella a scratch behind the ears for me.
Tony
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I’m sure its very good, but I am really trying hard to keep away from what Stella calls treatz! I am a Type 2 diabetic, and find that the whole grains, while higher in carbs, wear off a whole lot faster, than anything with sugar it it. Also we do not have a Costco store here in Podunk Center where I live, which may be just as well, since I now shop the periphery of the store and
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Okay. fair enough. It sounds like you are listening to your body. That is a great technique. You know that there better than I do here. Keep up the good work!
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