Friday, December 31, 2010

Roasted Asparagus






We went to my Aunt's house for Christmas this year. Ed and I even took his parents. Everyone is able to get along for at least a couple of hours, so it worked out pretty well. My Aunt had a tenderloin smoked (which was delicious) and I did a mushroom dish from someone else's blog (I can't remember which one as I'm typing and am still not talented enough to link another website within a post). I also made roasted asparagus, which if you haven't tried, you definitely should.

Roasting asparagus is just about like roasting any other vegetable. Asparagus comes bound by two large rubber bands. All of the magazines I've read say to break the asparagus stalks, one by one, where they will easily break and then peel any other hard parts off with a vegetable peeler. I love my family very much, but I needed to get my makeup on so we could get out the door. I cut those bad boys all at once just above the lower rubber band. You'll get tender asparagus every time you do that. I throw the ends in my compost pile. (Hahahaha!! That would be a spot right outside my side door that grows monkey grass and I'm never going to do anything else with it. I think the earthworms feeding off of it must be 9 feet long though..) Arrange the asparagus prettily in a dish, splash with some extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Lie to your mother about the amount of salt you put on the asparagus. Bake it at 400-450F, depending on what else has to go into the oven with the asparagus, for about 20-30 minutes. The tips will be just the slightest bit crunchy if you cook it just right and they'll burn up if you do it longer. Be at the first of the line if you actually want to eat any of it.

3 comments:

  1. You always leave me a little hungrier than before I visited you.=)

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Liz, I'm always happy to make someone else's waist line grow! At least this is a healthy dish. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was towards the end of the line but what was left was delicious. You prepared a lot of food and there were no leftovers. Asparagus is also supposed to prevent cancer and I do try to eat it often. Mom

    ReplyDelete