Scallops with Leeks, Dill and Orzo

This is one of my emergency dinners. It's not the fastest one but one that I can actually prepare in less than 20 minutes, which gets into my "emergency" category. The reason why it falls into this category is that I always have the ingredients on hand. Frozen scallops. Fresh leeks when on sale at the market or fresh frozen leeks when on sale at the market. Orzo. Orzo? Yes, I did not know what Orzo was either until I saw it at the supermarket a few years ago. And even if "orzo" means "barley" in Italian, what Americans call "orzo" is really a rice-shape wheat pasta (clever marketing guys!!). Why do I always have it at home? Well, it's different than the usual pasta. It's confusing fun to tell my children that we are eating pasta even though it looks like rice; it's also much cheaper than made-for-children-cute-pasta, which I tend to avoid (with the exception of the alphabet pasta). Dill? Since we are not purchasing much processed food in our family and try to reduce the amount of salt we eat, we use herbs a lot to flavor our cuisine. I love herbs and I want my children to appreciate them as much as I do. And since I have met so many children who would pick at the green stuff on their tomatoes (that would be basil, chive, tarragon, dill or parsley), I have made it a point to serve herbs to my children everyday (d'accord, maybe only every other day) since they were able to chew and swallow them. Some were hidden in a dish (like in this recipe), others were in the open, sitting pretty on a slice of tomato or swimming along cucumber dices in a yogurt-base sauce.
As a result, on a weekly basis, we purchase: dill, cilantro, Italian parsley, basil as well as thyme or/and rosemary. When available, I also purchase fresh mint, tarragon or chervil; I don't really know how to use sage.
I can't wait for nicer weather to be around so that I can start growing my own on my balcony. In addition to reducing my "herbs budget", it will give a project to my children who will be even more excited at eating basil/cilantro/parsley/tarragon/chervil/chive/dill/rosemary/thyme that they would have picked the leaves themselves! Trust me! Bon Appétit!

 Ingredients:
- 1 pound of frozen scallops
- 2 small leeks, washed and sliced
- Orzo
-  Fresh dill
-  2 Tb of butter
- Salt, black pepper to taste

• In a saute pan, over medium heat, cook leeks in butter.
• Add scallops and cook until scallops are fully cooked
• In the meantime, cook Orzo according to instructions
• Add fresh dill to scallops and serve over Orzo
• Add salt and black pepper to taste

My Personal Comments:

• Obviously, you could use any other small-shape wheat pasta instead of Orzo. You could even use rice!