Monday, April 26, 2010

Goodness from the Garden...&etc....

This may well be the first time I try to discuss a cooking project here at WillOaks Studio. A very special convergence yesterday made for a wonderful experiment...which makes a good little story. A delicious story, actually....and since I barely cook...well, bear with me.

Of course, it all starts at the asparagus patch and this is where Mariah spends a lot of time. Not because she likes asparagus, but because her catnip happens to be right next to it. The patch itself, you can see, is under a fresh new coat of wood chip mulch added this Spring.

Now did I bother to take a photo of the spears peeking their little heads out of the ground? Oops, no, I forgot. But here you can spy the buds of Coral Bells (Heuchera variety) and although they are red...it tickles me how they look a bit like tiny asparagus peeking up. (BTW, they will bloom soon and then the Hummingbirds will arrive!!)

But back to asparagus and what the heck I was up to here. You can see it was quite a bounty harvested today! Here the spears are all nicely washed and trimmed and are draining in the colander.
So the purpose of this cooking experiment? A dinner party for the girls. A dear friend of ours, Cathy, is just about to move to Canada. Our little girls group is going to miss her terribly...so before I gave this much thought, I was on the phone Monday morning with a "come on over for supper....I've got tons of fresh asparagus....and a new idea for how to cook them." My three friends were all game and this was our send-off for Cathy.....

Frankly, asparagus alone does not a meal make. Well, maybe if it's a cream soup, but not this meal. I happened to have a bag of frozen shrimp handy, and since I was aiming for an oven baked meal here, I decided we would up the ante and see what happened if we baked both the shrimp and the asparagus!
So both piles of food were washed and dried, and then, I made a mixture of half melted butter and half olive oil with just a touch of garlic, onion and fresh ground black pepper. I dipped each spear and each tail in that mixture, arranged them on the oiled sheets, and lightly sprinkled them with sea salt. The oven was high--425 F....

...and the spears went in first. Here's a peek through the oven window. About 15 minutes into it, the pan of shrimps was added for a grand total of perhaps 10 minutes more, then both pans were removed from the oven. I had a nice bowl of brown rice seasoned with a bit of wild rice on the side, and put a scoop of each of these three things on each plate to serve. Screwed up again because in my excitement to serve the supper, I totally forgot to take a photo of these pretty trays as they came out of the oven and the pretty plate arrangements....oh well....

....here's the dab of leftovers after everyone had their fill!! The thing about asparagus season is I truly get sick of the vegetable after just a couple times of steaming and eating them in the "normal way." This oven roasted version was amazing!! Much more interesting and a recipe I will surely repeat several more times as I harvest this season of asparagus from WillOaks Farm!!

Oh, and the girls all liked it very much, too!! I almost felt like a real chef...which was a very strange sensation! And just in case you get the wrong impression that we were only eating sort of healthy food? Linda brought a big Red Velvet cake for dessert!!

Bye bye, Cathy...we'll miss you!!

12 comments:

J. M. P. said...

It had to be delicious! Fortunate girls... :) I usually make omelettes with that: fried asparagus and shrimp, with onion, or, even better, with garlic and parsley, and two or three beaten eggs. Easy and glorious.

Alison said...

That looks yummy! Good job!

Frugal New England Kitchen said...

There's nothing like spring asparagus! I often saute mine with french fried onion rings! Those shrimp look good too!

Visiting from TB!

Sharkbytes (TM) said...

Our asparagus isn't showing yet. Looks yummy... but I'll skip the shrimp.

Lenox Knits said...

Yummy. I love the last shot of the sizzling shrimp with asparagus. I love fresh asparagus but not so much the off season variety. You are making me quite hungry this a.m.

Jen said...

It looked wonderful, but then my two favorite foods are shrimp and asparagus. I'm going to try that recipe of yours, it looks easy and delicious.

Anonymous said...

My favorites - shrimpies and asparagus! What I do with asparagus is: steam them, then put in pan with butter, fresh black pepper and fresh grated parmesan and then run it under the broiler. Leftovers get made into a frittata and of course there is always asparagus salad - stream, dress with garlic, olive oil and lemon - chill and eat. Oh so many things to do with asparagus.

Marg said...

I am just in awe, that you grow your own asparagus. I would love to be able to do that but doesn't it take a long time to get to the point of actually have asparagus. Did you know that some people claim that it will take away cancer??? So I eat a lot of it.
The meal looks great. I sure am going to try that bake method of cooking it. Glad it was all a success. Have a great day.

Ann said...

I never could take asparagus in more than very small doses but those pictures look very appetizing. I do love shrimp and with the olive oil and garlic man that sounds delicious.

Rose Clearfield said...

Yum! I just started making oven roasted asparagus this year, too, and it is AWESOME. I'm glad that you got to enjoy one last great meal with your friend. :)

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Janiss said...

I have to say, I think steaming asparagus does not do it justice, especially once you've had it roasted. I could eat roasted asparagus several times a week - yum!

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