July Recipe Roundup

Today, I did something I don't usually do, which is make two different but related meals for lunch and for dinner. It was mostly because I was home with time to cook and because I spent about $30 on vegetables at the farmers' market on Saturday and was determined to use at least some of them before they'd been languishing in the fridge for too long.

I've written about both of these recipes before, but they are both so good and so perfect for the season, that I wanted to put them in the spotlight again.

The first dish--my lunch, as it were--is early summer orzo, a recipe I mostly made up. It's a mix of vegetables diced into tiny pieces, sauteed in olive oil and then combined with a minimal amount of orzo. I usually make it in the sweet spot of early summer, when both peas and corn are available. I combine these with summer squash, onions, garlic, basil and toasted pine nuts. The key is to have everything cut the same size (i.e., the size of a pea or corn kernel or pine nut or piece of orzo) so that each bite has a little bit of everything in it. The other key is to add the orzo to the vegetables rather than the other way around--this way, the orzo is incorporated into the vegetables rather than the vegetables serving as a complement to the pasta. You could make this with many different vegetable combinations, but I'm partial to the early summer one. Then again, I was amazed that shell peas were still available on Saturday, and I can't imagine we'll see too many more of them after this week's mini heat wave, so I can see making this pea-less, out of necessity. Sprinkle some Parmesan if you like, and you're set for lunch, dinner or a snack. It is equally delicious re-heated.

Here's the recipe, from June 2009: Early Summer Orzo

The second recipe comes from a Mark Bittman "Minimalist" column from the summer of 2004, his Pasta with Corn, Zucchini and Tomatoes. I have been making this dish every summer since then, which I think is the definition of a keeper. So, in the early evening, after I'd come inside sweaty and grubby from mowing the lawn and watering the garden, I found myself, once again, chopping onions and garlic, dicing squash and cutting corn off of the cob. And the sauteing starts off the same way. The key difference here is the tomatoes. Tomatoes wouldn't work in the first recipe because they fall apart, and there, you're looking for intact bits. With this recipe, soupy is fine. You add the tomatoes around the time you put the water for the pasta in, and by the time the pasta is cooked, the tomatoes have broken down, and you have a delicious smelling pan of vegetables on the stove, waiting to be dumped upon the hot pasta. This dish might not be quite as pretty as the other one, but it's equally delicious.

Here's the recipe, from July 2008: Pasta with Corn, Zucchini and Tomatoes

Now, I have two different kinds of leftovers to eat this week, and while the chard and lettuce are still in my fridge, waiting for their turn, I can feel somewhat satisfied that most, if not all, of those vegetables I schlepped home so hopefully on Saturday are going to end up in my stomach rather than in the compost.

Enjoy!

Early Summer Orzo

I wish I had a great story behind this dish since I love it so much. But in truth, it evolved over several years, and I can't really pinpoint its beginning. I do remember a meal at which there was a dish of summer squash with almonds and there was an orzo salad, and when I came home, having the recipe for neither, I decided to combine them.

In any case, what I ended up with has become one of my favorite summer dishes. It's not that you couldn't make it well at other times of the year; it's just that it's especially good during that sweet spot of early summer when there are fresh peas and corn on the cob and the first zucchini that have not yet reached baseball bat proportions.

There is a certain amount of prep work involved in this, between shelling the peas and husking the corn and dicing the rest of the vegetables, but it's totally worth it. (Fortunately, I'm listening to the new PD James mystery--The Private Patient--on my iPod, which helped keep dicing tedium at bay.) And the recipe is flexible enough to accommodate a range of vegetables, though stay away from anything like a tomato that would fall apart--this is a dish whose pleasure derives from tiny, intact pieces of tasty things all melded together. I happen to like it with a combination of yellow and green vegetables (I make an exception for the red onion). There are two keys--one is that all the vegetables should be approximately the same size. (That is, the size of a pea or a kernel of corn.) And you have to add the orzo to the vegetables rather than the other way around. This isn't orzo with vegetables--the orzo is integrated into the vegetables so that it's a part of the whole rather than the base.

My basic routine is this. Dice the red onion and start to cook in some olive oil. Throw in some minced garlic, if you like. Once it starts to soften, add the diced zucchini or summer squash. (For my latest batch, I used one of each.) Husk the corn and cut off the kernels, then add those to the other vegetables. Add the peas last. In the meantime, cook the orzo. (Because orzo is so small, it's deceptive how much you need. The last time I made it, I used half a box which was way too much--that turned out to be enough for 1 small batch and 1 large batch, with some leftover. The flip side is that it's just as easy to add leftover orzo as fresh. Just make sure you add it while the vegetables are still in the pan so it heats up. When I'm using just-cooked orzo, I mix it in the serving bowl.) If you like, you can also add some toasted pine nuts or slivered almonds. I also add any fresh herbs I have around--basil definitely works, as do chives. When the vegetables are tender but not mushy (and the peas still bright green) and the orzo is drained, slowly begin to add the orzo to the vegetables. The orzo should flesh out the vegetables but not overwhelm it. Here's my pan of vegetables:

And here's the pan of vegetables with the orzo added:


Sprinkle with some grated Parmesan, and dinner is ready. Don't hesitate to make a lot because it is excellent re-heated for lunch.

Because of the recipe's flexibility, it's hard to pin down exactly what you need. I didn't measure my peas, for example and just used all the peas I'd picked from the garden. The orzo would have been just as good with more peas and still fine with fewer peas. Exact amounts are less important here than with other dishes. You're just looking for a certain balance and no one thing or flavor dominating. I'm including these quantities to use as a guide and adapt at will.

Early Summer Orzo

1 medium red onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
2 small zucchini or summer squash, diced
3 ears of fresh corn, husked and the corn cut off the cob
1 - 1 1/2 cups fresh shell peas, removed from the pod
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 - 1/3 cup pine nuts or slivered almonds (or a combo of both), toasted
1 cup cooked orzo (very approximate--see above)
fresh herbs (basil, parsley, chives, etc), to taste, chopped finely
grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Saute red onion in olive oil until soft.
2. Add diced squash; cook until it begins to shrink and soften
3. Add corn kernels, cook for several minutes
4. Add peas
5. Add pine nuts/almonds
   
6. Add herbs
   
7. Remove from heat and begin to add orzo, a few tablespoons at a time until integrated. It is better to have not quite enough orzo than too much.
   
8. Season with salt and pepper to taste
9. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan

Serves 4, approximately, depending on how hungry you are and what else is being served.

Peas/Peonies

I have friends who live in places where peonies don't grow who talk of having peony envy. I am grateful that I don't have to have peony envy, as I have 1 peony in each garden, both inherited.

I am also grateful that we didn't have an early June heatwave this year. Last year at exactly this time, we had a blast of heat that I didn't like and the plants didn't like either. The pink peony went from unopen to too open practically overnight, and the peas wilted in the heat and gave up the ghost. So I am definitely grateful for this year's more temperate weather. It is very dry at the moment, but we're supposed to have showers off and on all week, so that should help.

I love both peonies, the pink for its cheer, the white for its subtlety and elegance. I am always torn about cutting them--the buds are so lovely on the plants that I don't want to take them away, but they come and go so quickly. They really are ephemeral.

Meanwhile, I was delighted to see my first peapods today. I saw blossoms but no pods on Saturday, but today--definitely pods.

I planted two different kinds of shell peas (one on either side of the pea fence). I used to grow a mix of shell peas and snap peas, but it became clear to me that I'm much fonder of the shell peas (even with the shelling), and they're such a brief treat that I might as well have more of the kind I like more. I should point out that there aren't any peas in the pods yet, but I hope there will be in a few days. (Two colleagues at work have peas already--one had eaten 4 peas the day before, and the other had eaten 12. (It's the small pleasures, I know.) But they both planted their peas before I did.) I eat many of my peas while standing next to the pea fence in the garden, but there are a couple of things I like to make with them, and this year, there's a new recipe I want to try. (It's an Indian pea dish that my former colleague Bantu's wife made when I was there in January, and it was so good that I made her dictate the recipe to me while she was still cooking.)

In other exciting garden news, the first two ripe strawberries have appeared . . . and had already been nibbled on by the birds by the time I found them. Now begins the annual strawberry tussle as well as the more enjoyable morning strawberry walks in the garden. I am a bit alarmed, however, because I've spotted two little rabbits near the garden quite recently. Neither was actually in the garden itself, but it's only a matter of time, once they're in the vicinity.

It's a nice time of year in the garden--almost everything is planted, the weeds haven't taken over yet, and there's still a feeling of anticipation. I'll like it even more once I too can eat 12 peas and a strawberry that the birds haven't gotten to first.