Summer Orzo Pasta Salad
Orzo pasta salad is a very quick and easy dish to prepare. You can vary the ingredients in the sauce, but the basics are the same: you need the orzo pasta, some vegetables and a sauce. I made a roasted red bell pepper paste, added some green beans for color, lentils for protein and finished the dish with enoki mushrooms and cashew nuts for texture.
If you're looking for a quick and easy recipe for a picnic, this dish is an excellent choice. It's a light dish that pairs well with almost any kind of protein (hamburgers, fish, etc.). It's also very flexible; as spring turns into summer, you can incorporate many different seasonal vegetables into the recipe. Our extended family has a lot of picnics and potlucks this time of year, and I often prepare some variation of an orzo pasta salad. It's great for both the vegetarians and non-vegetarians in our house.
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Whole Wheat Gnocchi Stroganoff Recipe
The term "stroganoff" is synonymous with beef, but for this dish I made everything vegetarian. I used the usual ingredients needed for the sauce, which originated from Russia: mushrooms, onions, shallots, vodka, sour cream, coarse-grain mustard and tomato paste, but I paired it with my homemade gnocchi. This was my first experiment with making gnocchi from whole wheat flour. To ensure that the pasta turned out moist and to enhance the flavor, I added goat ricotta cheese.
If you have a vegetarian in the house as I do, finding an alternative to meat dishes isn't as complicated as it seems. Try this recipe, and you'll agree.
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Vietnamese Grilled Beef Rolls (Bo Cuong Hanh Huong Recipe)
Bò nướng hành hương is a wonderful South-Vietnamese specialty. It's a dish of beef wrapped around sliced yellow and green onions, then grilled to medium doneness. The beef is infused with the aromatic scent of green onions and five-spice powder rub with honey. The blend of all the flavors gives the meat a sweet, sour, bitter, pungent and salty taste.
The dish is traditionally served with vermicelli rice noodles (bún) and aromatic Vietnamese herbs, but I served mine with nước chấm, ginger guava sauce and crushed peanuts. The main component of ginger guava sauce is guava jam. It can be difficult to find, but it's available in some Indian stores. Make the effort to find it because the flavor is amazing, and it contrasts with the beef very well.
I make this dish quite often for parties because it's easy to eat in one or two bites and doesn't interrupt conversations. Try it as an appetizer at your next dinner party. Your guests will love you!
Note: Glossary of relevant Vietnamese cooking terms.
Bò = beef
Bún = vermicelli rice noodles
Cuốn = rolled
Hành = onions
Hành hương = aromatic onions
Nướng = beef
Thịt = meat
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Trenne Pasta with Napa Cabbage and Chorizo (Pasta Con Verza Recipe)
Chorizo, cabbage and sage may not be an obvious combination, but they work incredibly well together. The vegetarian chorizo, or "soyrizo", adds a ton of spice and the Vitamin A-packed Napa cabbage imparts a subtle sweetness to any meal.
I just made a batch of vegetarian chorizo today, which is what inspired me to make this dish. There are many good reasons for making your own, but the main reason is that it's much healthier (no cholesterol) than the meat version, without sacrificing flavor.
I paired the chorizo and cabbage mixture with triangle-shaped trenne pasta because it's much more fun for children than "boring" penne pasta. It's also a great way to get fussy kids to eat their cabbage. For all those people out there who think that healthy has to be tasteless, you need to try this dish. It's bursting with flavor without packing on the calories.
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