Vegetable and Orzo Pasta Salad

Vegetables are becoming plentiful around here! It's very exciting, but seeing as how Seth and I are really the only two that eat the vegetables from the garden other than green beans (thank goodness, Bryan will eat green beans), it is getting hard to eat so many. I remembered an orzo pasta salad that I used to make a couple of years ago. I am not sure why I stopped making it because it is delicious. I think it is funny how that happens to some recipes while others stick around for the long haul.
Well, Annabel Karmel's Top 100 Baby Purees cookbook that I have has a recipe for orzo with vegetables. When I saw it in the book, it jogged my memory to make an orzo pasta salad with some of the veggies I had from the garden. My version has a few different and a few more ingredients, but it was a big hit with Seth, who is loving finger foods and foods with more texture. Here's how I made my version:

Ingredients
1 carrot
1 zucchini
1 eggplant
a few florets of broccoli
4 cherry tomatoes
handful of fresh basil leaves
juice from 1 lemon
chicken broth (eyeball it)
about a cup of orzo pasta
2 tablespoons of butter
Parmesan cheese (to taste)

1. Dice up the carrot, eggplant, zucchini, and florets of broccoli.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan and then add all the diced vegetables to sautee until slightly tender.
3. Add enough chicken broth to cover all the vegetables and just a little more to be able to cook the orzo.
4. I added about a cup of orzo and then let the entire dish boil uncovered for 9 minutes.
5. I didn't have much liquid left, which is what I was hoping for, but if you do, you can drain off the extra liquid.
6. While the pasta and veggies are cooking, finely chop the tomato and basil.
7. Once veggies and orzo are tender, add the tomato, basil, lemon juice, and the other tablespoon of butter.
8. Top with Parmesan cheese.
9. Serve slightly warm, but it is also very tasty cold.

*I do not add salt or pepper until I am ready to eat my portion. That way Seth can eat it without the extra sodium. If I was preparing this just for adults, I would also zest the lemon. That makes it extra lemony and delicious.