Good evening, Kibitzers. I’m not going to lie—I’m in the middle of packing. Although moving has been a gradual process, Monday is the big day when the majority of our stuff is going to be moved into the new place. I’m nearing freak-out mode as I realize there is still so much left to do, and I’ve been packing up a storm. So I hope you’ll again excuse the absence of “real diary” content this evening.
I thought I’d simply share a recipe tonight—one of my favorites. I believe I posted a version of this recipe a few years ago, but it’s worth sharing again.
So it’s zucchini season, of course, and I somehow ended up with a pile of it. I say “somehow”—I made the decision to buy it, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Originally, I’d intended to make zucchini boats for lower-carb lunches. That ended up not happening, like a lot of my healthy food ideas (lol), so I ended up with a bunch of zucchini sitting around. Tonight, I’m using some of it to make one of my favorite summer comfort foods: zucchini orzotto.
Google tells me that Italian orzotto is made with pearl barley—this recipe is made with orzo pasta. It’s really creamy and sort of resembles a risotto (hence the name), but it doesn’t require nearly as much effort. I originally got the recipe from Laura Vitale, and it has been a favorite ever since. It’s really simple, too—it doesn’t require much more than zucchini, orzo, and stock. The BF loves it, too, but when he makes it, he likes to add all kinds of things like mushrooms, Italian sausage, chicken, etc. I sometimes add mushrooms (not tonight), but otherwise I like to keep it simple. Here are the ingredients (slightly modified from Laura’s original list of ingredients):
2 large zucchini, very thinly sliced
2 tablespoon olive oil
6 ounces orzo
2 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon butter (I consider this optional)
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
That’s it! Maybe a little salt and pepper, too, if needed.
Start by heating the oil in a large pan and adding the zucchini. Cook them down until they are very tender—about ten minutes, maybe a bit longer. In the end, the zucchini will start to break down and meld into the orzo, so they should be very, very soft.
Then, add the orzo and stir for a minute or so (the smell when that orzo hits the pan is heavenly). Add the chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Allow it to simmer for about ten minutes. The orzotto is done when all of the liquid is absorbed. If you’d like, you can add the butter, but I often don’t—it’s creamy enough that it doesn’t really need it. Tonight, I did, because I was feeling extra decadent. It does need freshly grated parmesan cheese, though, and the more the better!
The combination of soft, sweet zucchini with creamy, starchy orzo just really makes for a fantastic comfort food. What’s not to love about this? Like I said, I normally like to keep this dish simple, but tonight I wanted to try the Beyond Meat plant-based Italian sausage. So I cooked up a couple of links, cut them up, and stirred them in. The “sausage” was a solid B+ (not quite as good as the Beyond Meat burger), but a great addition!
Here’s Laura’s video on the how to make it, too—just to give credit where it’s due!
What do you want to kibitz about tonight?