Toasted Orzo Salad with Beans and Radishes)

As you all know, I love gardening. I love getting my hands dirty in the soil. I love being part of the process as they grow from seed to vegetable and every year I try to grow a new vegetable.

I live in Hamden, CT and only a few miles away is a great all organic nursery called Natureworks. The employees are fantastic! All their employees are master gardeners so the advice I get from the master gardeners is amazing. So when I want to try something new in my garden, I head over to Natureworks. I take their advice, apply the methodology to my garden and watch my vegetables come in beautifully.

I have only had my garden for a few years. The first year was mainly beans and spaghetti squash, but I have expanded my knowledge and experimented with various vegetables. Every year, I learn something new about gardening and every year I try something new. I LOVE IT! Its like my own personal science lab. Last year, the easiest crop you could grow, didn't grow! I wasn't sure why my radishes were not growing. I wondered if it might been when I planted the seeds, where I planted them, or I just did something incorrect. Either way, this year I was going to get radishes in that garden!

Well, after the advice from Natureworks, I not only planted and harvest radishes, I was able to get 3 harvests this season of my radishes. I not only planted the red radishes, but I planted the easter radishes and the french radish. I was in radish heaven. I also planted a new kind of a bean. I planted the string bean and the Italian Flat Bean. I did 2 harvests of the beans and it was so worth it! I plant them in the spring and then after I harvest, I plant them in the late summer so I have beans for the fall. I try to do at least a 2 crop rotation in my garden, but this year I did a 3 crop rotation and started with the radishes and ended with the radishes and it was so worth it!

Since I had so many radishes and beans I decided to experiment with some pasta salads. I love pasta salads. They are great as a lunch. I make them all the time as a grab and go for my lunches. I was getting tired of the same ol salads I have been making and decided to use my garden ingredients from the fall harvest for my pasta salad! IT WAS DELICIOUS!

You don't have to grow these veggies, but oh what fun it is to try! Either way, growing or buying at the market, this pasta salad is delicious!

Ingredients:

1 cup / 5 1/8 oz / 146 grams - Orzo
8 oz / 225 grams- Radishes
8 oz / 225 grams - Green Beans (either string or Italian Flat Bean. Either work and both taste fantastic. I did a mixture of the 2.))
2 TBSP - Extra Virgin Olive Oil - divided
Zest and Juice of 1 Lemon
2 ounces - Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 ounces - Apple Cider Vinegar
1 ounces - Honey
1 TBSP - Spicy Mustard
1/4 tsp - Salt
1/8 tsp - Pepper
1/2 tsp - Horseradish

Directions:))