orzo with spinach, feta, peas and beans

So dr bob is a bit of a recipe collector without much hope of profiting from the collection. In the old days it meant tearing out pages from cooking magazines, like the several decades of Bon Appetit that got recycled but not before bob went through them all yanking some interesting recipe ideas. Same deal for Cooking Light a bit later. Decades of food mags and special supermarket impuse buys. But the harvested pages still remain unused in a few folders somewhere. In more recent years PDF copies of online recipes have filled a recipex folder in the What, ME Cook? Book website, not made public. All saved for some possible future application. Today the moment arrived for one of them. Orzo and spinach were likely candidates for bob's dinner for Ani's first day of work as a chem adjunct in the fall semester. A search on "orzo" in that folder turned up a familiar and reliable name from the NYTimes, Melissa Clark. One pan orzo with spinach and feta. Meslissa already had the peas in this lineup, but bob added the mixed canned beans for extra protein. We were out of green onions, but had a leek waiting to take their place. We had just returned from the Baltimore inlaws with some fetalike cheese with a forgotten Turkish name, and we had a 6 oz bag of baby spinach, so everything we needed was ready or replaceable.

We scarfed almost all of this down with some Friuli Pinot Grigio on our back patio on a delicous August summer evening. A successful recipe retrieval! Tasty and nutritious.Thanks Melissa!

ingredients

• 2 T butter [or 1 T butter and a T olive oil]
• 4 large trimmed and thinly sliced scallions [we used a leak instead]
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz coarsely chopped baby spinach [our bag was 6 oz]
• 1 t salt
• 1 3/4 c veggie broth
• 1 c whole wheat orzo
• 1 t finely grated lemon zest (from one lemon)
• 3/4 c (3oz) crumbled feta
• 1/2 c thawed frozen peas
• 1 c chopped fresh dill, or parsley [maybe a half cup of parsley]
• 1/2 can mixed cooked beans (bob option)

instructions

1.  Prep your greens and zest and ready your veggie broth. We used two cubes in boiling water. Crumble or dice up your feta. Open the can of beans and drain.
2. Heat your nonstick skillet/pot over medium heat, melt the butter (oil?), and saute up the scallions (leek?) and garlic with the salt, cooking until softened.
3. Dump in the spinach and cover, letting wilt down. Stir once if motivated.
4. Pour in the veggie broth and bring to a simmer.
5. Stir in the orzo, lemon zest, again cover and simmer until the orzo is cooked through (consult the package) and most of the liquid is absorbed. Stir occasionally. If you forget to thaw the peas, this would be a good time to add them into the mix. Even if they are thawed, they need to cook, no?
6. Finish with the dill (parsley?) and cheese, mixing them in well, off heat.
7. We made a few shortcuts compared to Melissa, but you won't notice.

notes

1. Melissa's recipe. Behind a paywall so it is a good thing I grabbed it went it wasn't.
2. Of course Melissa has a website.
3. Illustrations available.