It’s no secret that I’m crazy about breakfast. Any blogger that muses over the meal and dedicates precious blog space to breakfast recipes automatically earns a spot on my crowded Google Reader. Ashley at Edible Perspective tops that list. Not only is she an awesome photographer of both food and inedible things, but she also writes recipes for health and flavor – two elements that I find are often mutually exclusive on food blogs with a “healthy” slant. Green smoothies with spinach or kale? I’ll pass, thanks. Oatmeal with homemade almond butter and coconut? Sign me up!

But what about farro? In our latest issue, our Grain Guide by the wildly-talented Anna Thomas covers the ancient relative of wheat in a savory pilaf with ginger and lentils. When I interviewed her for the contributors’ page, she talked about her recent obsession with the grain, and we mused over its potential in a ton of savory recipes. It wasn’t until reading Ashley’s blog, however, that I began to see farro in the sweet, gentle light of morning.

While she was in San Francisco for the BlogHer Food Conference, she discovered that ground farro makes an awesome first meal of the day – with a depth of flavor that’s deeper than oats and a slightly different nutrition profile. The menu at Il Cane Rosso offered “broken farro with raisins and almonds,” which she proclaimed “the best breakfast of her life.” Back at home, she recreated her own rendition of the dish and posted a recipe on her blog, adjusted to her own tastes.

I was intrigued by her raves about the discovery, and so this past weekend, I ventured into the kitchen and gave my food processor a little (a lot) of attention – I ground up the rest of my bag of semi-pearled farro. Since Saturday, a container of it has been sitting in my pantry, staring at me, beckoning to me. Finally, I took this morning’s news of a snow day as my invitation to try it myself, as it takes slightly longer than other breakfast cereals to cook. Rather than vanilla paste, I scraped the last of a stray vanilla bean into the mixture, and I added molasses and Artisana Coconut Butter (my constant obsession) as sweetners and flavor enhancers.

It was everything she promised her readers it would be, and I can’t imagine how delicious it would be chilled in the refrigerator overnight and mixed with yogurt in the morning. I’m fighting the urge to make it again for lunch; it might just be a farro-filled day around here. Thanks, Ashley!