orzo a la laura!

i love my mom's cooking.  she is so smart about her recipes and they are always delicious.  when i'm planning my dinners for the week, i always think back to what dishes i was always ecstatic to see on our dinner menu (which my mom planned and posted on the fridge every week).  things like meatball subs, piggys in a blanket, aroni, crab noodles (which to this day is the most perfect dish in the world), and chinese noodles, to name just a few.

this week i decided to make a family favorite which we always take to parties and is a huge hit.  its light, fresh, healthy, and absolutely divine.  plus, it has pasta in it, which is an automatic 'A' for me.  i'm dubbing this dish, "Orzo a la Laura" because it is my mom's creation.  of course i put a little spin on mine!

here's what you need:  one box of orzo pasta, a pint of fresh cherry or grape tomatoes, one small cucumber, fresh basil (if you have it-- if you don't, just use a spoonful of pesto!), baby mozzarella balls, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, S&P, and fresh mixed greens.  to bump up the protein, you can either add rotisserie chicken or a can of chick peas.

i start by making the orzo.  be careful, though-- a little dry orzo makes a lot of cooked pasta.  i used about half the box.  i generally don't bother putting olive oil in the pasta water, but in this case I would recommend it because the pasta is small and you don't want it to stick together.  when it's done, drain the orzo and put it back in the pot to cool.

while the orzo cooks/cools, rinse your veggies and peel the cucumber.  i diced my cuke into small cubes so that they would distribute well into the salad.  i also halved (or quaretered if it was a big one!) a pint of fresh heirloom cherry tomatoes from the farmers' market.  they were all different colors, including purple! check them out:

in a big, glass bowl, i made the dressing by adding half a cup of good olive oil, about an 1/8 of a cup of balsamic vinegar (add more or less to your taste--i like my dressings vinegary), a good crack of salt and a good crack of pepper.  i whisked it around with a fork for a few seconds until it was all incorporated and tossed my veg right in to marinate.  

next step was addressing the mozzarella.  i used baby balls of mozz called "ciliegini" which are the ones you generally find on tomato/basil/mozzarella skewers for appetizers.  they are just the right size to halve or quarter and toss in with the salad.  i added them to the veg mixture and tossed it around again.

take your orzo (which has cooled slightly) and toss it in with the rest of the veg/cheese/dressing mixture in the glass bowl.  toss around gently until everything is coated nicely.  at this point i would add my fresh basil (chiffonade, please!).  but, since i foolishly forgot to buy any this week at the farmers' market, i decided to improvise with a spoonful of basil pesto that i had in my freezer (look for the recipe in my previous post, presto, pesto!)  and it worked perfectly!

when my mom makes this salad, she adds roasted red peppers, spinach, and sometimes even asparagus.  so feel free to add whatever looks great at the market that week!

i serve my pasta salad over a bed of mixed greens (for added veggies) and some sliced rotisserie chicken.  you can also pull the chicken apart and toss it in to the salad (or substitute chick peas... yum!)

here's the final product!  

thanks for teaching me how to cook, mom!