Shrimp Orzo Salad

Hey, y'all

This is Dad's Dinner Time. Now, it's not fair to assume that moms do all the cooking

because it's a different day now. I help Brooke out as much with dinner time

as she helps me with yard stuff. It's interchangeable. We got two kids

We got one day, three meals. You never have enough time. So I'm here today to show y'all a super awesome

healthy, good tasting, good for you, easy dinner recipe. It's a shrimp orzo salad. I love orzo

and you may not know this, my youngest, Matthew, who is always hungry, he has solid hollow legs

He's this big, just thick, thick, 50 pounds, three years old. He's allergic to rice. So we don't eat

rice at our house anymore, and orzo is a good thing that kind of looks like rice. He doesn't

feel like he's missing a lot, so orzo is a go-to for us. Pasta will always be one of Jack Dean's

favorite foods. It's just so good. It's got a great consistency. I'm going to put it in the

boiling water. Got a little bit of salt in there. It'll take seven to eight minutes. So all the good

stuff that I'm going to put in it today is shrimp. These shrimp I got from behind my house on

Richardson Creek. The shrimp are running so big right now that they're too good to use for bait

so I take them to the house. I boil these. I peeled them. I deveined them. I'm going to use a

cucumber. I think this is an English cucumber. It doesn't look like the ones that we grow at our

house so I using a burpless English cucumber today We love cucumbers I going to use some lemon some radishes Radishes is one of the things that I sneak in on my boys They think it looks cool and so I can get them to eat it

Mama got me eating radishes when I was younger. It's a little spicy, though, so you might want to check with your kids

You can substitute fresh tomatoes. Today we're doing cucumber, radish, shrimp, orzo, salad

The only dressing that I'm going to use for it is three tablespoons of olive oil and lemon juice

Olive oil and lemon juice together, for some reason, they make a perfect pair

and it's all the dressing that you need for some of your favorite pasta salads

So while that's cooking, let's get our cucumbers in. I'm also going to use the outside

Y'all know that I love to zest lemons because that's where all the big flavor comes from

It's all concentrated in the lemon skin, so I'm not going to let any of that go to waste

I'm going to zest both of these lemons. Now, if my mama was here, she would tell me I was doing this incorrectly, because that's

what mamas do. Some people move this, I move this. Oh, I got to stir my orzo

I don't want it to stick. If you wanted to, you can put some oil down in here, but I've seen one of the most well

respected chefs that I love to watch on television said that that's a wives tale

You don't have to do that. Looks good. I'm gonna squeeze the juice from both of these lemons

Now you can put this in the refrigerator and cool it down if you want to. For what we're

doing today the heat of the orzo is gonna heat up my chilled shrimp So today it gonna be a warm salad Strain these radishes I gonna drop these in Look how pretty that is

We got yellow, green, and red. I've got about a pound and a half of shrimp

And the herbs that we're gonna use, I love dill. Dill and shrimp go together so well

that I'm gonna chop up the tips here. I'm gonna chop up a couple of tablespoons

This is so good in shrimp salad. And we've got some parsley

I'm going to put about three tablespoons in. We do a lot of pasta salads

If I can get some proteins and some vegetables and a good starch in a salad

it makes it easier because Jack's at the stage now where he doesn't want any of his food to touch

So unless it's made to be together, we're having a time keeping all of his food

separated on his plate. Plus, it makes it easier for us, too

And all of these things, Brooke likes to eat, I like to eat, and it makes it a lot easier

for a family when you don't have to cook a special dinner for your kids. So I've lost about 40 pounds eating like a 7-year-old

It's good for me, it's good for Jack. Okay, this is good

So let's strain this off. OK, this orzo's done, y'all. I'm going to strain it off

So the doctor said give him a little bit of time When he grows up maybe he grow out of that allergy So we waited a few months He didn grow out of it He had just a thimble full of rice

and he threw up until it was gone. So we don't eat any more rice

That was three years ago, and he still hasn't had any rice. So unless we go to Japanese

we just don't have to worry about rice, and he doesn't even know what he's missing

And this orzo takes a good... This orzo makes a good replacement for it

Let's see how we taste here. Look how beautiful this salad is

So good. That looks fabulous, too. I'm going to put a little bit of salt and pepper, y'all

And see, the heat from the orzo is going to heat up my shrimp, too

so this would be a nice warm salad. Or you can take it and put it in your refrigerator

and you can chill it. You could serve it on some little bib lettuce cups

and I know it'll be a big hit with y'all and your family too. It's got everything in it that you want

Shrimp, a little bit of pasta, some fresh seasoning, some fresh herbs and vegetables

Super simple and super good. And it would go really good with a strawberry basil lemonade

You can find that recipe right here on Mama's Network too. so you can eat up and drink up right here on the Paula Deen Network

So good