Orzo salad

Although summer hasn’t shown her face this year, this salad brings me as close as possible to that summer feeling. I’ve heard about orzo pasta, but never found it in the store, until now.

I grew up with rice and noodles so I can’t wrap my mind around rice shaped pasta. Pasta should have all kinds of shapes, but why make them look like rice? I am so use to rice it was quite weird to cook with this pasta. It’s probably something that’s between my ears. It will go away…eventually…

Ok the ingredients I used in this salad are: cherry tomatoes, arugula, prosciutto, orzo pasta, onion and garlic. And last minute I decided to add some black olives and balsamic vinegar as well, so that’s not in the picture.

First I started with cooking the orzo in boiling salted water till they were done. I am very bad with measurements; that’s why I always end up with lots of food. I think for this salad I used about 300 grams of orzo.

While the pasta was cooking I chopped up one onion, grated about 3 gloves of garlic, quartered the tomatoes and pitted and sliced the olives. I drizzled some balsamic vinegar to give it more flavor.

I used the flat side of my knife to flatten the olive so I could easily pull out the seed. Who needs an olive pitter if you can do it like this.

The pasta was still a bit warm when I mixed it with the rest of the ingredients. 

Right before serving I tore the prosciutto in small bits and mixed in the arugula. Then I added some salt and pepper and it was ready.

And to make it even extra special…I added some toast pine seeds and one soft boil egg on top. I was too lazy to make poached egg and soft boil did the trick for me.

I'm saying bye to the summer, but not to this salad!

The mini series: baked Spaghettini pasta

It’s baking time again! This time my measurements were kinda off so instead of 24 I made 48!! mini pies. That’s a good thing if you’re having a party, but not so good if you are trying make 24 only.

It is really difficult to measure everything exact so you have 24 pieces, but now I know for next time.

I used:

- one cup of Spaghettini

- 75 gram bacon cut in small pieces

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

- 2 big tablespoons of quark

- 2 eggs

- 3 tablespoons of milk

- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
- fresh grounded pepper

- a bit of parsley

- some bread crumbs

- 2 tablespoons of grated cheese

You might have not heard of spaghettini and to be honest I think it is a name someone came up with, but they are slightly thicker then spaghetti and only 2 cm long. They were small enough to fit in the molds, so if you have orzo pasta that would work as well. As long as they fit in the molds you’re good. I boiled about one cup in some salted water.

Then I mixed the quark, eggs, milk, garlic powder, pepper and olive oil together.

I used a scissor to cut the bacon.

And the parsley...

And mixed everything together.

After the spaghettini went in I thought some cheese would taste good also so I added some grated cheese.

I preheated the oven on 180C degrees and while waiting I greased the molds with some olive oil and filled the them with the pasta mixture.

I stuffed them as much as I could.

To give it extra crunch I added some bread crumbs on top.

After they were in the oven for about 25-30 minutes I took them out. The top was nice and crunchy.

And this was only the first batch….

They were very interesting and maybe next time I would add some extra salt or some more bacon. I didn’t know how salt the bacon would make them so I didn’t add extra. With some more cheese and bacon it would make a great party snack. Imagine dipping them in ketchup!

Pasta soup

I remember when we grew up mom made this soup. I don’t know where she got it from, but maybe it was something easy to make and something different then the “normal” pasta. Sometimes you’ll get to “invent” a dish that goes down so well you keep on making it. It’s also good for using your left over veggies.

So on my lazy day I made pasta soup for my hubby.

I started with seasoning some ground beef with salt, fresh ground pepper, garlic powder, some drops of sesame oil and some chopped parsley. You can use a mixture of half beef, half pork or you can even use chicken. Basically whatever meat you like to make soup with.

While the water was boiling I made little meat balls by holding some meat in one hand and a little spoon in the other. I squeezed a little so the meat would pop up and use the little spoon to scoop it up. This is faster then to pinch some meat and roll little balls.

If you don’t have time to make little balls you can simple put all the meat in the pot and stir it till everything falls apart in little pieces. I won't look as pretty, but the taste will be the same. 

Use a different pot to boil some pasta. You need the same amount you would use if you would make normal pasta. Cook till it is al dente.

Make sure you’ll scoop up all the foam and fat you see appearing on top. This would give you a nice and clear broth. After all the foam is removed taste the water and add some salt if needed.

Turn down the heat and check out your fridge. Whatever veggie you still have left can go in the soup. I put in some mushrooms, green beans, zucchini, bean sprouts and carrots. If you really want to make a fast soup you can buy the precut veggies. Just put the whole bag in.

While you wait till the soup cooks you can make some fried onion. My hubby just love fried onion and he can eat it with everything. Just chop one or two onions (I used 2) in little rings and fry them in quite a bit of oil. Once the onions brown take them off the heat and drain the onions in a little strainer. Leave them to cool and they will crisp up a little.

I like to add the pasta straight to the soup and serve it with lots of fried onions. You can also keep the pasta and the soup separate. All a matter of preference. Either way it will taste good, especially when you add the fried onions.