This is a great summer meal, and a perfect way to get rid of some of your veggies in the fridge. I adapted the recipe to what I had in the fridge, plus I bought a few items that I felt were necessary to bring the dish together (artichoke hearts and feta). For simplicity, I am sharing with you the ingredients and measurements from the original recipe, and in parentheses I added what I used instead. As you will see, it’s very easy, especially if you hate measuring!
The recipe called for orzo pasta, but I tried it with Barley and it worked well, except I like the orzo pasta better due to the texture. I leave that decision up to you! You can also use both, but cook them separately – barley takes longer too cook.
Ingredients: 1 ½ cups orzo pasta (barley works, too) 12 oz marinated artichoke hearts 1 tomato, seeded and chopped (1/2 or 1 red bell pepper) 1 cucumber, chopped (1/2 cucumber, it’s all I had) 1 medium red onion, diced 1 cup crumbled feta cheese (omit or substitute if vegan) 2 oz sliced black olives (Kalamata olives) ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped 1 tbsp lemon juice (I used closer to 2 tbsp) ½ tsp dried oregano ½ tsp lemon pepper (optional)
Directions:
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and season with salt. Add pasta and cook according to packaged instructions. Drain, let cool for a moment, then pour into a large mixing bowl. Drain your artichoke hearts (so you can chop them finer, if needed) and reserve the liquid. Add all of the ingredients (including artichoke liquid) to the pasta, toss and chill for 1 hour or serve right away!
Recipe from allrecipes