A light and refreshing meal for those warm Summer nights
Outdoor movie night by the beach calls for this kind of picnic! And the best part? They were showing Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. 
Summer Orzo Salad
Serves 4-6 Difficulty Level: easy peasy
Ingredients:
- 8 oz orzo pasta, about 2 ¼ cups
- ½ cup Kalamata olives, sliced in quarters, lengthwise
- 1/3 cup chopped red onions, about ½ of a small onion
- ¼ cup chopped, fresh herbs, I used tarragon and basil
- 1 cup chopped tomatoes
- ¼ cup crumbled feta cheese
- ¾ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Instructions:
Cook the orzo in salted, boiling water until soft. When cooking pasta for a salad, I like to cook it a little longer than al dente, for a more delicate texture. Drain and set aside to cool. Click here for a video on how to properly cook pasta
Once cool, toss with the olives, red onions, fresh herbs, tomatoes, and feta.
For the dressing, whisk all ingredients together. The dressing makes about 1 cup. You won’t need it all, but it’s always nice to have home-made dressing in the fridge. Dress the pasta salad so it is flavorful and glistening, but not pooling at the bottom of the bowl.
Serve at room temperature or cold.
Variations:
- Add some shredded roasted chicken to make it a heartier meal
- Add herbs like thyme, parsley, chives, dill, oregano, lemon thyme, or mint. Almost any herb you like, but I don’t recommend rosemary. The leaves are too tough and the flavor too overpowering for this dish.
- Make it a roasted vegetable pasta salad!
- Add cucumbers for a little extra crunch. Or how about some nuts?
- Add some arugula or other lettuce
Do Ahead:
- The dressing can be made up to 2 weeks ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator.
- The pasta can be cooked, drained, and tossed with a little olive oil about 2 days ahead and kept refrigerated.
- The finished salad can be refrigerated up to 4 days. It will even taste better as it sits.
- Everything but the herbs that need to be chopped, can be chopped one day ahead and kept in separate containers or sealed bags.
- Anybody know why you shouldn’t chop herbs ahead of time?
Grilled Shrimp
Serves 4-6 Difficulty level: easy-medium
Ingredients:
- 1 pound large shrimp
- 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon ground, cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1-2 limes and/or a few sprigs of cilantro for garnish (optional)
Instructions:
Take the shells off the shrimp, leaving the tail on.
Toss the shrimp with the rest of the ingredients until well coated. Let it sit for 1/2 hour to 1 hour at room temperature. Letting it sit in the marinade longer than one hour will start to break apart the proteins in the shrimp and will make it mushy. Not a fun texture to eat!
While waiting for the shrimp to soak up all the great flavors of the marinade, turn on your grill to medium-high.
When ready, place the shrimp on the grill and cook for about 1-2 minutes on each side, depending on the size of the shrimp, or as soon as it turns pink. You will notice in the picture I have below that some are still a little gray. If I left it on the heat until that whole side of shrimp was pink before I flipped it, it would have been overcooked. I relied on the residual heat while cooking the flip side to cook them through.
Take the shrimp off the grill and place on a plate. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and let sit for about 3-5 minutes. This is called “resting”.
Garnish with lime wedges. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Variations:
- Add different spices like cumin
- Make a seafood mixture with shrimp and scallops or lobster
- Serve them on skewers
Do Ahead:
- Hmmmm…sorry, no luck guys here for this recipe. It can sit at room temperature for 1-1.5 hours after it’s grilled.
For the picnic, I put the salad and shrimp in Chinese Takeout boxes for easy transportation and eating. And it looked pretty cool too.
And if you can enjoy this meal while on the beach, sipping some wine, and watching this movie, then all the better! I recommend it.
