I had a problem that I’m sure we all deal with on a daily basis: a bag full of frozen butternut squash in the freezer taking up space! I know that isn’t really the case, but I seriously overestimated the amount of this beautiful orange squash I was going to need for my last recipe and had nothing else to do with it! Instead of letting it rot away from freezer-burn, I decided to put it to use, I rummaged around in the freezer and found some shrimp, then turned my attention to the pantry and located some orzo from a previous recipe (I don’t remember which one). Things were starting to come together, all I needed was some onion, chicken stock, and a few other things to make use of this massive bag of squash!
Yum
I opted for a red onion to brighten the dish up and add some texture since orzo can get kinda mushy, I also had some green onion left over so I chopped that up and tossed it in as well.
You guys know I’m a HUGE fan of one pan dishes so I figured I’d just cook the orzo in with the veggies and see how that turned out… I ended up using the full 3 cups of chicken stock to keep the orzo from drying out and sticking to the pan, but you may have different results depending on your choice of cookware, if you like how mine looks you can pick one up here
Notes
I would recommend consuming this dish the night it is prepared, I tried reheating it the next day with lackluster results.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4-5 cups squash, cut into ½ inch cubes
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- ⅓ cup sherry (I used a cooking sherry and omitted the salt)
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 8 oz. uncooked orzo (1⅓ cups)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 16 oz. uncooked shrimp
To serve:
- ⅓ cup feta cheese, crumbled
- 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
- lemon wedges
Instructions
- Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large (12¬inch) pan with a cover.
- Add the squash and onion to the pan, and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes.
- Add ½ cup water to the pan and cover. Cook for another 5 minutes until a fork goes into squash easily. There should be no water left at this point.
- Add the garlic to the pan and cook for 30 seconds to ¬1 minute, until fragrant.
- Add the sherry to the pan and scrape up all brown bits from the pan.
- Add 2 cups stock, salt and orzo. Cover and cook, stirring every couple of minutes, until orzo is al dente, roughly 10¬ to 12 minutes. If pasta seems to be getting dry, add additional liquid as needed (Up to 1 extra cup chicken stock).
- Stir in the shrimp, cover and cook for 5 more minutes, or until shrimp are cooked through. You will want to stir it every minute or so to prevent the orzo from sticking to the pan.
- Sprinkle with feta and parsley and serve with lemon wedges.