Orzo dish ideal for waist watchers

By the time early January rolls around, an awful lot of us are cutting back on the chow a bit to see if we can knock off some of the Christmas splurge that collected on our waistlines. My slender friend Sharon Daley, who has been managing her cholesterol by careful eating, was telling me about this dish that has become her new favorite quick, easy and low-fat recipe. In its own way, it is sumptuous with shellfish, satisfying with the pasta, and as flavorful as you want with the extra stuff you can add in.

As you know by now, I like dishes that you can tinker with to take advantage of what you have on hand, what is in season, and flavored to your taste. In this recipe, the givens are the orzo and the feta, the flexible ingredients are the kind of shellfish you choose and the vegetables for seasoning.

If you are watching your diet for calories, cholesterol, carbohydrates, sodium and all that stuff, you probably are one of the people who reads the nutrition label on the back of most food products in the grocery store, everything except things like heads of lettuce or apples. Some cookbooks and magazine recipes will sum up nutrition information, made possible by a special software program, at the end of the articles.

I had a good note from Florence Turek of Garland, who suggested that I provide nutrition information for the recipes I offer you here. I understand many people like to have that information, and I also understand that many of you, like me, hardly ever follow recipes as written, so with a mere tablespoon of butter we are likely to blow a recipe’s fat grams right out of the water or tip over the fiber percentage by a substitution of brown rice for white. The good news is that if you would like to get a nutrition facts calculation, you can do it by going online to one of many recipe analysis sites such as http://www.recipe

calc.com/. If you cook professionally, there are many software programs you can buy, some quite inexpensive, through which you can run your recipes to obtain the nutrition facts.

Back to our orzo dish. Sharon says the original recipe she had calls for scallions, but she uses roasted red peppers, which sounded like such a great idea. I have some leeks that I decided to use, since the scallions suggested the onion family, and I also stirred in a tablespoon of roasted garlic puree that I had. Why not pesto?

As long as you have a pound, you could use our own good little Maine shrimps, or a combination of shrimp and scallops or scallops alone. If your scallops are the big ones, consider cutting them up. Come to think of it, why not cubed chicken? Or pieces of fish like tilapia or haddock? Or for the vegetarians among us, one of those nice flavored tofus cut up into bite-sized pieces?

Orzo, Feta and Shellfish

Serves 4

1 cup of orzo

1 pound of shellfish

4 ounces of feta cheese

5 or 6 scallions or one large shallot chopped

1/4 cup of roasted red pepper chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the orzo according to the directions on the package. Mix together the cooked orzo, shellfish, feta, vegetables, and salt and pepper. Bake in a 350 F oven for 30-40 minutes or until the feta is melted and bubbly.