please bear with me as I am still going through Giada withdrawals
Since Car and I are still pretty much caught up by our little adventure last Saturday, it seems as if we've practically been memorizing Giada's Feel Good Food cookbook just to relive the experience lol.
But when it came time to finally choose which recipe we were going to try to recreate, we decided on giving the Whole Wheat Orzo with Artichoke Pesto a try. Although we had countless of sample cups of this healthy pasta dish as we stood in line, I don't think it was truly possible to enjoy the dish especially while standing for 2 hours under the sun. It was more like eating for sustenance rather than eating for pleasure.
As we prepared our ingredients to make this light and healthy pasta dish, we couldn't seem to find this mystical whole wheat orzo. After trying three different specialty stores and a number of groceries, we ended up giving in to a package of Organic Orzo from Whole Foods since we figured everything from Whole Foods is healthy anyway lol.
Another not so healthy thing we ended up doing was that we opted to use canned corn instead of the required grilled corn. For starters, it was what we already had in the pantry. Two, we were a bit lazy to go through the extra step of preparing grilled corn on the cob.
So here it goes..
Giada's Whole Wheat Orzo with Artichoke Pesto
(rather, our less healthier take on Giada's Whole Wheat Orzo with Artichoke Pesto lol)
INGREDIENTS:
1 (12-ounce) package frozen artichokes- thawed
1/4 cup toasted walnut pieces
1/2 cup fresh flat leaf parsely
1/2 fresh oregano leaves
Grated zest of one large lemon
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 garlic clove, smashed
(we love garlic so we added more)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 can corn kernels
2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
1 1/2 cups freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 pound organic Orzo
PROCEDURE:
-cook orzo in a large pot of salted, boiling hot water
-prepare pesto by placing artichokes, fresh herbs, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, walnuts, salt, pepper, and olive oil in the food processor until smooth
-in a large bowl, toss together the orzo, pesto sauce, corn, and halved cherry tomatoes
-finish off by mixing in the parmesan cheese
Looks just like the picture!
I think we did a pretty good job even if we did skip a few steps lol
Looking forward to more cooking adventures with this new cookbook.
Miks