Yum! Asparagus!

Hold your noses: this week’s ingredient is asparagus!

From Wikipedia:

Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennial plant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and asparagus in the Asparagaceae. Asparagus officinalis is native to most of Europe, northern Africa and western Asia, and is widely cultivated as a vegetable crop.

We found some great recipes, so check back for the results soon!

Yum. Yum. Yum! My friend Nate made this soup and it was so good that I had to replicate it for myself.  We used the New York Times recipe and it was delicious!!

There was quite a bit of work in prepping the carrots for the soup…

Lots and lots of carrots

But it was worth it!  The soup turned our so, so good! I highly recommend this recipe.

Delicious-ness!!

Believe it or not, this meal was the first time I’ve ever roasted a whole chicken.  All-in-all, it turned out pretty well.  I followed Melissa Clark’s recipe very closely, but I roasted the chicken upside down.  Whoops. My favorite part of the dish was the roasted veggies– especially the carrots, garbanzo beans and cauliflower.  They were so, so good.  I would highly recommend this recipe, just make sure you roast your chicken breast side up.

Roasted chicken

The full meal deal

Brandon loves carrots and he’s quite good at cooking them.  He took the secret ingredient reigns on this meal and steamed some carrots and drizzled them with honey and parsley.   (He prefers dill, but I don’t like it.) We splurged and got the fancy multi-colored carrots from the Market.

We paired the carrots with turkey burgers and baked sweet potato fries, adding lots and lots of minced garlic (like the garlic fries at the Mariner’s games).  Delicious!!

Carrots, a la Brandon

Carrots, carrots, carrots

This week we’re trying a favorite snack of Brandon’s: carrots.  We bought some fun, multi-colored organic ones at the market, but most of our recipes call for your standard orange carrot.

From Wikipedia: Carrots can be eaten in a variety of ways. Only 3% of the β-carotene in raw carrots is released during digestion: this can be improved to 39% by pulping, cooking and adding cooking oil. Alternatively they may be chopped and boiled, fried or steamed, and cooked in soups and stews, as well as baby and pet foods. A well known dish is carrots julienne. The greens are edible as a leaf vegetable, but are rarely eaten by humans. 

What's up, Doc?

This meal was fantastic and took less than 15 minutes to prepare, from start to finish.  (Really only 5 minutes of “hands on” time.)

We sauteed the baby bok choy per the NY Times, and added more garlic (I love garlic) and some Enokitake (I think) mushrooms.

We made some Green Chopstick pork dumplings, placed them on top of the quinoa and drizzled Trader Joe’s soyaki (soy/teriyaki) sauce over the whole meal.  So good and so easy!

Deliciousness!!

Sesame scallops

What an adventure this meal was!  I have never made scallops before and they turned out pretty well!  I followed Emeril’s sauteed bok choy and shiitake mushrooms with seared sesame-crusted scallops and ginger butter to a tee — but with less butter.

The scallops turned out really good– and we’ll definitely make them again.

(Although with less lemon next time, it detracted from the recipe, in my opinion.)

Emeril's scallop delicousness

Baby Bok Choy

Our ingredient for the week is baby bok choy, and as a result, we have some great Asian-inspired meals planned.

It’s surprisingly hard to find information about bok choy on the internet (beyond lots and lots of recipes), but I did find this from Melissa’s Produce: It is a versatile vegetable which is delicious in soups and stir-fry, braised whole or sautéed.  Once cooked, the leaves and stalks become more mild and add a hint of sweetness. 

Spring Pasta With Prosciutto, Peas and Zucchini

We’ve made dishes like this before, but never with zucchini.  We used orecchiette noodles and followed the first half of this Epicurious recipe more-or-less, but omitted the butter, rosemary, flour, egg, milk, and parsley.  We did have some canned chicken on-hand that we included too.  (It sounds gross, but I really like the canned chicken, especially on big cobb salads!)

I love prosciutto and Brandon loves sage, so this Cooking Light recipe is a winner at our house.  We subscribe to Cooking Light and when this recipe graced the cover over a year ago, we had to make it. So, we did.  And it’s been a favorite ever since.

We’ve made this dish with and without the “lemony” sauce and it’s superb both ways.  We typically have it with angel hair pasta or quinoa and broccolini.  (It’s the new broccoli!) I’m fairly certain that we pair it with those sides because that was on the Cooking Light cover.

Lemony Chicken Saltimbocca (sans the "lemony")