Orzo Pasta with Veggies & Orzilla Sauce

Monday, October 28

Orzo Pasta with Veggies & Orzilla Sauce

Rating: 4.25

The meal planning this week was dominated by two factors: we’d received a copy of Isa Does It, so naturally, I wanted to make all the recipes at once and I’d also raided my mom’s garden while I was visiting over the weekend and had big bags of spinach, lettuce and the last of their bell peppers to use. I was thumbing through the book and working on my meal plan while I waited for my niece to wake up and hang out with me on Sunday morning. I’d already decided that I would make some kind of pasta & veggies to incorporate a few of the peppers (I had a lot), and I paused when I got to the Tempeh Orzilla recipe. It was a bit different than what I was planning – I was using a bunch of veggies and no tempeh – but the sauce sounded like it would be good with what I was planning. 

Normally, I just add broth and a bunch of seasoning, this looked much better. The sauce is easy to make and adds so much flavor to the dish. It’s mainly wine, broth, onion, garlic and seasoning. I left out the sun-dried tomatoes because Seth doesn’t really care for them and I had fresh tomatoes going into the orzo anyway. I think this will be my new way of making orzo and veggies. It’s normally one of my “clean out the fridge” meals, using up the odds and ends of veggies we have on hand, but this time I actually bought most of what was going into it and will use the remaining bits later in the week in things like tacos and a stir-fry. This time around we had red and yellow bell peppers along with spinach from mom’s garden, and I bought some broccoli, asparagus, tomato and zucchini. We made a nice, big salad from some of the lettuce I got from mom to have on the side. I didn’t eat very healthfully this weekend and it felt really good to get a solid dose of veggie goodness.