Summer recipe: Orzo salad

I looked at quite a few orzo salad recipes on epicurious.com, a lot of which looked good but got bad reviews. A lot of the reviewers said the salads were bland and/or needed embellishments. Given that, I improvised my own version using those recipes as inspiration.

1 lb orzo pasta
Assorted veggies; for this batch I used:
--1 orange bell pepper
--4 scallions
--3 ears fresh corn (cut off the cob)
8+ oz crumbled feta cheese
fresh herbs—parsley, basil, chives, etc
tomatoes
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
honey
lemon juice
salt, pepper, spices to taste

1) dice the bell pepper, scallions, and parsley finely. Slice the corn off the cob.
2) cook the orzo according to box instructions. When only 2-3 minutes remain (orzo is not quite done), add the corn.
3) while the orzo and corn are cooking, make the dressing. I used a food processor to finely chop the basil, chives, and 2 tomatoes. I whisked that with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. I just guesstimated all of this and made it to taste. Make more than you think you need (I ended up making a bit more to supplement the first batch).
4) drain pasta and rinse with cool water. Mix pasta, corn, bell pepper, scallions, parsley, feta and dressing in a large bowl and enjoy! Actually, with stuff like this, it’s usually better to let it sit for a while, if not a full day, before enjoying.

I love making stuff like this in the summer—requires minimal cooking but makes a ton of food for the rest of the week. On Sunday, I made this, some tabouleh, and some hummus, so we have lots of food that we can just pull out of the fridge and eat without having to do any cooking, especially nice now that it’s starting to heat back up again.


Note: I wouldn't skimp too much on the feta (I probably used more than 8 oz). As many reviewers at epicurious noted, it does give the salad a nice tangy-ness and adds some additional salt. I did use a low-fat feta, though, because there's so much other stuff that you won't really notice the difference between regular and low-fat feta. If you're not a feta fan, do try to incorporate something that'll have a strong flavor that'll be able to stand out.