Orzo with Chicken and Asiago

Go team me for cooking with new ingredients! I picked up a small bag of orzo pasta at Target last week not knowing what I would do with it and not even knowing really if I would like it since I've never had it before. Thanks to All Recipes I found a great and extremely simple recipe to try out Tuesday night for a quick dinner. Both Dan and I liked it, and it was ready in literally 15 minutes - considering we weren't having dinner until after 8 that worked out perfectly! I'll definitely make this again when we need a quick dinner and don't want frozen pizza, but I'm not sold on adding it to my Top 10. I will, however, be posting an amazing versatile Top 10 recipe shortly after this though!

Orzo with Chicken and Asiago
1 cup water
1 can (14-16oz) chicken broth
12 ounces skinned, boneless chicken breast - cut into bite sized cubes
1 1/4 cups uncooked orzo
1 cup frozen peas, thawed (I omitted - neither of us will go near peas with a 10 foot pole)
1/2 cup shredded or grated asiago cheese, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon rosemary, oregano, or basil

Combine water and broth in a large pot, bring to a boil. Add in chicken and pasta, reduce heat and simmer 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, stir in peas (if using), half of cheese, salt, pepper and herbs. Serve with extra cheese sprinkled on top.


Image and recipe from All Recipes

A cool feature of All Recipes is the addition of nutritional information. I typically only look at calories and fat, although I know there are many more important factors in the nutritional value of a meal. However, this doesn't look too bad overall -

Nutritional Information
Calories: 384 (14% from fat)
Fat: 5.9g (sat 2.9g,mono 1.5g,poly 0.7g)
Protein: 34.3g
Carbohydrate: 45.7g
Fiber: 2.9g
Cholesterol: 64mg
Iron: 3.3mg
Sodium: 656mg
Calcium: 179mg

A few of things I learned while making this dish:
1. It really is THAT easy. Stir everything together and it's done in literally 12 minutes. I was concerned about boiling the chicken right in with the pasta but it turned out great.
2. Two small chicken breasts is plenty. I used 3 and thought the amount of chicken was a little overwhelming.
3. A little more salt and pepper would be good... and I definitely recommend rosemary over the more-typical oregano or basil. I bought some at the store just for this and it was more than worth it.
4. Leftovers are so-so... I had some for lunch yesterday and was not crazy about it. Sitting in the fridge and being nuked definitely took away some of the flavor and the creaminess of the fresh meal.