Late last year, I came face to face with the fact that I spend almost $200 a month on the most mediocre lunches imaginable during the work week. Each day, depending on the level of insanity happening at the office and my mostly correlated craving for carbs, I would make the sad choice between walking 8 blocks and back to eat a bowl of wilted salad greens and a number of weird toppings all chopped and held together with always the wrong amount of dressing, or sprinting across the street to eat one of many uninspiring options at Pret a Manger, including a $9 lentil soup. As I tried to figure out where all my money was going, I realized that eating so well on the weekends and so poorly but expensively during the week was starting to really not make sense.
As sort of an early resolution, I vowed to make more, if not all, of my weekday lunches at home. Not every week has been a success, but so far I’ve managed to make a number of quick meals, mostly grain salads of some kind, that I’ve actually been excited to eat when lunchtime rolls around.
This orzo salad was one of the first lunches from home, and one of my favorite. I don’t know what it is about orzo, but its size and texture make it so fun to eat. It’s tossed together with delicious, deeply caramelized onions, briny, salty kalamata olives and plump raisins that add a burst of sweetness and contrast. It’s one of those dishes you toss together and then keep “tasting” from the bowl before it ever gets to your plate.
I”ll admit that over the past few weeks I may have fallen off the lunch-making wagon a bit, given my work schedule. But just writing about this orzo salad is making me salivate and sincerely regret having bought the saddest salad in the world that’s sitting on my desk right now.
Ingredients
- 12 oz. orzo (2 cups)
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
- Kosher salt
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives, thinly sliced lengthwise
- 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
- 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
- Freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the orzo until al dente, about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, cover the raisins with warm water and let stand until softened, 10 minutes. Drain the orzo and rinse under cold water. Drain the raisins and transfer them to a large bowl with the orzo.
- In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the onion, season with salt and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the onion to the orzo along with the olives, cheese and parsley and stir. Season with salt and pepper and serve.
Notes
https://www.thekitchenchronicles.com/2016/01/20/orzo-with-caramelized-onions-and-raisins/
