Greek Orzo Pasta Salad

Greek Orzo Pasta Salad

>> Yes, I know summary is officially not over but we’re knocking on the door but being over in fact Monday, a Labor Day a center the first is meteorological fall course fall officially starts a little later in September but we still have some backyard cookouts and some get togethers and pasta salads always a favorite for a lot of folks to bring to a cookout and use was going to be a bow tie pasta maybe a row teeny or something of that nature but have you ever heard of the pasta orzo or Lot of people have some people say or so in that arise where you’ll sometimes see on the menu says orzo rise, it’s actually a pasta but it looks like a rise and I’ve got some of that here in the ball right now. So if you’ve never have before it’s just another type of pasta but as you can see as you look on the edge of my bowl here in fact, I’ll turn it there we go you can see it does look like there’s rice and that goal may be some long grain Rice to give you a closer look to it here. people think oh that that’s Rice it’s not it’s just another shape that they with pasta and they call it or so, but you can do a whole lot with this. I mean I wouldn’t say you don’t have a spaghetti and meatballs with this because it’s very small very good for a pasta salad so today we’re gonna do kind of a version of a great pasta salad with this but you know I don’t have the red wine vinegar or something like that were on a tweak the flavors but again as I said in the past all say it again. If you want to use this recipe by all means go ahead but make it your own make it something that you think why don’t like that, but I’ll I’ll use this so angry at I’ve got everything already lined up here. The or so it’s already cooked it’s going to go just like a regular pasta throw into a pot of boiling water, let it cook for 1011 minutes. And then it will be done but other ingredients that we have here to kind of make this a Greek if you will is some freshly cut a cucumber you can still get a good dose of a fresh cucumbers in stores right now also I have a whole to make have chopped up here by the way if you take the seeds out you can dig a little watery feta cheese which I will separately after make Gretchen of all of this because she’s not offended. She’s red onion diced up very very small we also have some artichoke hearts but make sure if you do this that you get the ones that are marinated because that’s going to be flavor and reserve some of the liquid that I have here also some black olives that I have chopped up more out there little lemon juice and here were also got to use some lemon pepper seasoning not a whole lot this stuff has a kick to it and when I say kick I’m not talking there’s just a lot of flavor and a little bit of lemon pepper seasoning and there are some parsley and some oregano so you’re going to start here with your bowl of the or Zo all right it has been cooked. It’s still sitting In your bowl and that’s OK because you don’t put this in the fridge and chill this pasta salad so once you get to the point where you’ve chopped up everything your all of your cucumbers your onion and your tomato that’s when you’re going to start throwing everything into a bowl so we’re gonna throw in a little bit there of the parsley this is dried parsley by the way if you wish to go fresh that will not be a problem fresh work out just fine for you as well. There is the oregano now I mentioned earlier there were only going to put a little bit of that lemon pepper seasoning in here and you can see there’s not a whole lot my spoon doing this for 2 reasons again a little bit goes a long way with lemon pepper seasoning but also going to bring a little bit freshness to this all of them or a with some lemon I didn’t bring a limit with me today. So I’ll just be using some lemon juice that is in a bottle. It works just as well though, but of course that freshness would be nice right so there are your fresh tomatoes. Are your fresh. Diced up cucumbers which by the way if you want to cut those in half. If you take your cucumber like this pretend this is the cucumber and you cut it down the middle able split in late open. And you can take a spoon and cut out the If you want to go that route here is a little bit there of some diced up red got to leave off the feta cheese but we will go ahead and throw the black olives in there as well by the these are just regular black olives and dice them up myself with my chef night keep in mind when you buy things that are diced up for you you’re you’re paying the company the time to do that. So you can save money by buying it not diced and then spent about one minute dicing it up yourself. These are regular black colors want to go more of a Greek You’ll go with the column out of all is in step and they’re going to take that container here as I mentioned this is the marinated artichoke hearts. You can there whether or not marinated but this has really good flavor mixed and you’ve got some of a little vinegar in here, but you’ve got some spices you’ve got some garlic in fact says here. Turmeric there’s even some saffron in that that’s going to bring some good flavor as well. So I’ve already open the bottle and poured out most of the liquid so that when I pour these in you can see it’s just the artichoke hearts going in but don’t drain and let you know go well let down the drain reserve that liquid and I have some over there so that when you’re mixing everything now. Inside you’re mixing bowl gum coming from the bottom going to the top that’s how how to fold things in so that you’re not smashing anything down we’re mixing the flavors that nature boat, if you think it’s a little too dry or you it needs a little bit more flavor. Well that’s what going to grab that reserve liquid from at very artichoke hearts earlier pour a little bit of that in watch you look would you want this getting to to liquidate a little bit there of that fresh lemon juice to open up the flavor a little bit more and then as we continue go the bottom pool to the top to fold everything in so keep adding in some