Dinner tonight.

[eurydicebound]

So I got my first delivery from the organic farm on Wednesday, and there was a wide variety of stuff. I was pretty pleased.

I then went off and forgot about it altogether until today.

Eep.

Needless to say, tonight's dinner was fueled by a huge sense of "OMG Must use this before it goes bad!!!!"

The boys had a hot dog and PB&J respectively (because I'm a sucker) and then fresh carrot sticks, strawberries, kiwi fruit, and some mango pieces. Will usually likes broccoli, but the broccoli had started to yellow so he wouldn't touch it. I was unwilling to simply let it go, though, so I steamed it in the microwave.

After the boys finished eating, I cut up the remaining kiwi, strawberries, and mango and mixed it up with a dressing made of honey, lime juice, a bit of vanilla, and a pinch of salt. For dinner, I took deli turkey, the broccoli, and swiss cheese and made rollups with it. I then put them in a potato roll with a bit of spicy dijon mustard. I'm now having that for a sandwich along with the fruit salad. I feel almost skilled, and it's quite tasty.

I do have some other stuff left... some onions, some pears, some grapefruit. The tricky one, though, is the fresh asparagus. I've never ever in my life cooked asparagus before. Does anyone have any suggestions for quick and easy asparagus recipes?

Comments

[shellyinseattle.livejournal.com]

The quickest, easiest way to cook asparagus is to steam it for just a few minutes until tender. To prep it, hold it near the bottom and let it snap off. It naturally chooses the point where the soft edible stuff meets the hard stuff which can then be discarded.

I prefer my asparagus plain, but it can be added to almost anything like pasta or omelets etc. The only thing to avoid is overcooking.

[masqlab.livejournal.com]

I second Shelly's suggestion. Grilled is also tasty, if you have such an apparatus -- roll 'em in olive oil and sprinkle 'em with a little salt first. I also like to chop them up, steam them, and toss them with butter, pasta, lemon juice and fresh grated parmesan. mmmmm I love asparagi!!

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

I just cooked half a "bunch" in a glass loaf pan. Add about 1/4 cup water, wrap the top with plastic wrap and "zap" in the microwave for a minute. Take out (carefully), drain water, top with a little butter-type stuff, sprinkle with salt (I used lemon-pepper seasoning, and it was nummy), cover again and zap for another minute.

So good, even the Valkyrie loved it.

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

Yeah, was going to say that the easiest way to cook asparagus is to just steam it.

Asparagus is super-easy to cook. It's also possible to overcook it, and mushy asparagus is not a good thing. It's best to err on the side of undercooking, because it still tastes good raw. (I can say that, having eaten some raw when K was making some asparagus for us the weekend we spent together in April.)

[polyhex.livejournal.com]

Preheat oven to 400. Toss asparagus in olive or canola oil, garlic powder, and pepper and/or salt to taste. Stick asparagus in oven for 12-14 minutes.

[iamnikchick.livejournal.com]

We had the asparagus from our CSA box for dinner last night, too. :)

One trick, if you don't like the idea of "losing" a lot of your asparagus (and the tough ends seem to be snapping off pretty high up the stalk) is you can try trimming just an inch or so from the touch ends and then peeling the bottoms of the stalks. An asparagus vendor at the farmer's market gave me that tip.

I often do mine "Greek style" which is just steamed until crisp-tender and drizzled with a little lemon, a little olive oil and a couple of grinds of pepper.

Oven roasted with balsamic vinegar is also good. I have two recipes on my recipe pages that use asparagus as an ingredient in the larger meal (both from Cooking Light):
Linguines with Asparagus, Parmesan and Bacon
Lemon Asparagus Risotto

The risotto is really good but not the kind of thing you probably want to mess with on a work day, as it requires a half hour of constant stirring. The linguine recipe is pretty fast (even if you don't use fresh linguini).

[trollbabe.livejournal.com]

Ooh, we've got a recipe for pan-seared asparagus that's fantastic. Remind me if I don't get it to you in the next day or two, all right? Because you will thank me for this recipe, I promise. We both used to hate asparagus, and now we love this stuff to pieces.