Orzo Cucumber Tomato Salad

I had some orzo I wanted to use, and I had everything on hand to put together this refreshing salad. It's even better the next day. I like to serve this as a side with my grilled lemon garlic chicken - left overs make a great lunch the next day..

1 1/2 cups dry orzo pasta
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cucumber, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup chopped red onion ( to tone down the sharpness of an onion soak it in some water for about 10 minutes, drain, and pat dry with a paper towel)
kalamata olives, as many as you like
1/4 cup fresh chopped flat leaf parsley
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup good quality feta cheese ( I like Valbreso french feta sheep's milk - expensive, but I'm worth it!)
balsamic vinaigrette ( I like Newman's Own) or Greek salad dressing

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add dry orzo pasta and cook 8-10 minutes, or until al dente. Drain.

In a large bowl combine all ingredients add 1/4 to a 1/2 cup dressing to taste. You don't want it swimming in dressing, just enough to flavor everything. Refrigerate until ready to serve. I like to pull it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before serving.

One Pan Pasta

One pan pasta - ready in no time flat? yes please! Angel hair or thin spaghetti will not work in this dish - it would turn to mush. Stick with fettuccine or linguine. 

for 4 servings: 12 oz fettuccine or linguine noodles, 12 oz cherry tomatoes (sliced in half), 1 onion, thinly sliced, (red or white), 4-6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced, 3 sprigs fresh basil, 2 Tbl olive oil, pinch of crushed red pepper flakes, sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, 4 1/2 cups chicken broth

throw all the ingredients into a large stock pot. If the noodles won't fit - break them.

Bring to a full boil over medium high heat. Start timing 9 Minutes after it comes to a full boil. Using tongs stir and turn pasta frequently to prevent sticking. Pasta should be al dente after 9 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with additional olive oil and freshly grated parmesan and additional fresh basil.

Homemade Spaghetti & Fettuccine Noodles

Put 5 cups of flour on a work surface. Push the flour to the sides to make a well. Add 7 large eggs, or 5 jumbo eggs, 3/4 tsp extra virgin olive oil. Mix oil and eggs with a fork. Gradually beat in the flour from inner side of well wall with hand, keeping wall in tact while mixture is still runny, until it comes together in a cohesive, kneadable mass. Knead dough with floured hands, incorporating more flour from well wall until dough no longer sticks to hands. (you will have left over flour) Set dough aside and scrape up and discard flour from work surface. Lightly reflour work surface, continue to knead dough, reflouring hands often until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes. ( dough should still be slightly tacky.)
Form dough into a ball, then dust well with flour and wrap with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at room temperature for an hour. Unwrap the dough after an hour, cut dough in half and rewrap half of the dough to roll out when done with first half. Reflour hands and slowly and evenly roll out the dough. You will have to roll, roll, roll, pushing down rather hard to get it as thin as possible. You might have to lift up the dough and put some more flour down so it doesn't stick to work surface. You should try to get the pasta as thin as possible. You should be able to sort of read a newspaper if you held it behind the rolled dough.

Now you get to cutting it. I used a pizza cutter. You can cut it in big strips for lasagna noodles, or pictured here these noodles turned out to be the size of fettuccine noodles. Let pasta dry (you don't have to have this embarrassing concoction to dry your pasta.) If you have long kabob skewers you can put the skewers under a few plates and put something heavy on the plates to keep the skewers in place under the plates and let the skewers stick out away from the cabinet and place the pasta noodles on the skewers to dry. Let dry at least 24 hours before storing in zip lock bags. If you cook right away it only takes about 3-4 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain in colander, but do not rinse pasta.

For this spaghetti size noodles I cut it really really thin.

The Best Alfredo Sauce with Ham and Peas

No one will guess how easy it is to make. Pair it up with a green salad and toasted garlic french bread it will be a hit!

• 3/4 pd bow tie pasta, or pasta of your choice
• 1 cup frozen peas ( or 2 cups cooked broccoli florets)
• 2 tbl. all - purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbl. salted butter
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese - in the green can
• 3/4 tsp salt (seems like a lot, but not salty)
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 pd lean sliced ham, cut into slivers

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boiling for pasta. Add pasta; cook 12 minutes, or until firm, but tender. Add peas for last 3 minutes of cooking. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water; drain pasta.

Meanwhile, shake together flour and milk in a jar with a tight fitting lid until blended. Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic; saute 1 minute. Whisk in milk mixture. Simmer 3 minutes. Whisk in cream cheese, 2 tbl. parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Simmer, whisking, 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Toss together pasta, peas or broccoli, sauce and ham in large bowl. Add 1/4 -1/2 cup of the reserved pasta water, tossing to make creamy sauce. Top with remaining parmesan. Serve hot.