there's a royal food joust every month at http://leftoverqueen.com/ and i thought it would be fun to join. this month's star ingredients are chipotle, buttermilk and zucchini. luckily i have all those without having to go to the grocery so all the more no reason to whip up something new.
first, i cooked half a pound of orzo, following its package direction. nothing fancy on that!
next, i sliced a quarter of zucchini (mind you.. the zucchini was as big as my arm... blame my garden!). drizzle it with olive oil, salt and pepper and grill 'til its nice and.... grilled!
now the fun part:
dice a quarter of an onion (white, red, whatever's available)
handful of parsley, chopped
put these two in a big bowl, combine it with the cooked orzo and zucchini (chop it in bite sized pieced) set aside.
in another bowl, combine the following:
3 Tbsp low fat yogurt
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
salt and pepper to taste (i used about 14 twists from a little salt and pepper grinder)
4 chipotle peppers, chopped (if you like it mild, u'll prolly just want to use 2 peppers)
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp cumin
at this point it only feels natural to add the dressing to your orzo-zucchini mixture.
you may want to consider letting the flavors develop for 30 minutes before you start eating. however, you will not offend me if you decide to eat it right away.
toast 2 tbsp pine nuts and sprinkle it to your orzo zucchini mixture before serving
you'll have this:
in case you are wondering what you can do with your 30 minutes if in case you want to optimize the flavors of this dish, you can, as a suggestion, grill some kind of protein to your liking... like this:
and there goes saturday's dinner: orzo with zucchini & chipotle buttermilk dressing. a wonderful journey of flavors in your mouth that starts creamy, then spicy, then tangy, followed by crunchy, then fresh, and finally finishes with heat.
now if we only had lienenkugel's sunset wheat, that would be the perfect meal.
