Starting a New Year Off Right

This past weekend was Rosh Hashanah. The Pedant and I were going to TP's parents for services and meals. TP's mom asked us to bring 2 salads, one for a meat meal and one for a dairy meal (since most of our family keeps kosher). Last week had been really busy, so while I was at work, TP researched salads that would be easy to make, delicious and fitting in with our religious obligations. We chose 2 orzo salads and they were both a hit.

First, the "meat" salad. It was a Bon Appetite recipe that we found on Epicurus. The Orzo, Green Bean, and Fennel salad with Dill Pesto was a HIT. The fennel gave it a really lovely flavor and worked really well with the dill pesto. It was fresh, colorful and fairly healthy - not too much pasta (which is one of the lovely things of orzo - a little goes a long way).

The "dairy" salad was from the monastery salad cookbook, which is always so good to us. We had made it before. It is orzo, olives, green peas, red pepper and red onion in a mayonnaise sauce with dijon mustard and lemon juice dressing. The problem we had the first time we made it was that the onion (1 red onion, thinly sliced) was SO sharp it rendered the salad inedible. All you tasted was ONION. (For leftovers, we added more mayo and mustard and an avocado and it was still ONION!) This time, we tasted the onion first and instead of using the entire thing in slices, we use 1/5 of it chopped very fine, which gave it the flavor but did not overpower it. (We also used more may this time since it wasn't just us eating the salad.) And it was perfect. Refreshing, sweet (the peas) and tangy (the onions - even just the few tablespoons!) it was a great lunch dish.

Orzo? I Hardly Know you!

Last night, The Pedant was gracious enough to make dinner and he posted about the prep part for our orzo and broccoli. I enjoyed it a lot - it was very tasty and nutty and quite creamy in fact (well, for a "diet" food). We tried to come up with ways to modify it a bit without making it too unhealthy. Here's what we came up with*:

--Use a fake beef stock (or real?) instead of veggie broth
--potentially make a roux as a thickener, instead of the fat free half and half (also to avoid using an oxymoron)
--increasing the vegetable amount (possibly adding spinach also?) and decreasing the orzo amount.

*The recipe was basically 16 oz. frozen chopped broccoli (thawed), one carrot, pine nuts, 1/4 cup fat free half and half (yes, I know, a real oxymoron!!), garlic, shallots, a vegetable broth and water mixture, and orzo (duh), Parmesan cheese

But it was very tasty. We really enjoyed it.

Return to the House of Orzo!

Just sprayed vegetable broth all over the kitchen, but it was worth it for Orzo Night, part II.

Part I was a recipe from the British food blog "Eat Like a Girl," which described orzo with spinach, butternut squash, and ricotta. We left out the pancetta, but it was tasty anyway.

Part II was from a Weight Watchers cookbook that does that annoying thing where the top, middle and bottom of the page all turn separately for a "mix and match" effect. Since the Sherbs and I so rarely prepare three meals at home (bowl of cereal for breakfast, leftovers for lunch), much less three meals from a Weight Watchers cookbook (as opposed to our stanbys Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) the mix and match is wasted on us.

Regardless, it was an orzo recipe with broccoli, carrot, and lots of vegetable broth, which is ladled in slowly during the cooking process. There is a technical term for this, but other than "causing the Pedant motor difficulties while ladeling with his left hand and stirring with his right," I don't know what it is. It seems to have come out tasty, but we haven't had dinner yet - I'm waiting for the Sherbs to get back.