Asparagus | I Can Cook That

Crispy Herbed Shrimp with Roasted Asparagus and Tomatoes

Have you ever opened up a food magazine, and have decided by a photo only that you want, no need, to make that recipe? I didn’t even look at the title, or read the ingredients, before I had earmarked this recipe to make. Shrimp, asparagus, and tomatoes? This is right up my alley. The best part of cooking with seafood is that it’s almost always a quick meal. This Cooking Light recipe for Crispy Herbed Shrimp with Roasted Asparagus and Tomatoes can be made in only 40 minutes, perfect for a weeknight dinner.

Ingredients

Shrimp:

3/4 cup panko, divided
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

Chive Aioli:

1/2 cup 2% Greek yogurt
1/4 cup canola mayonnaise
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon paprika

Roasted Asparagus and Tomatoes:

1 pound asparagus, trimmed
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
1/3 cup sliced shallots
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Cooking spray

Continue reading Crispy Herbed Shrimp with Roasted Asparagus and Tomatoes

Creamy Lemon Pasta with Vegetables

Pasta is definitely one of my weaknesses. I would eat it every day if it was socially acceptable to do so. But alas, all those carbs probably wouldn’t be best. Adding vegetables to a pasta dish always makes me feel a little bit better about my choice though. MyRecipes.com had an awesome sounding recipe for Creamy Lemon Pasta with Vegetables.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup 1% milk

1 cup whole cream
Zest and juice from 3 lemons
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
16 ounces spinach fusilli pasta
2 pounds trimmed asparagus
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 pints cherry tomatoes, halved

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Season with salt. Cut asparagus into 1 inch pieces.

Add the asparagus to a steamer and add it to the pot. Cover and steam for 3 minutes. Set aside. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half.

Add the olive oil to a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and saute for 1 minute.

Slowly whisk in the milk, cream, zest, and juice from 3 lemons. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes. Cook the pasta according to package label directions while the cream mixture is simmering. Drain pasta and return to the pot. Add the cream mixture to the pasta and stir to coat.

Add the Parmesan cheese, asparagus and tomatoes and mix to combine.

Serve with more cheese and lemon zest, if desired.

This dish includes some of my favorite flavors! You can use normal pasta but I thought that the spinach pasta would add nice flavor and color.

The asparagus stays crispy which is nice with the creamy pasta.

The tomatoes add a burst of bright flavor which makes it feel really fresh.

The lemon flavor is throughout the whole dish but isn’t overwhelming at all.

Plus, look how pretty it is!

Creamy Asparagus Soup with Prosciutto

It’s about time I finished my review of Pomi! This time, I am working with their Alfredo Sauce. As a reminder, Pomi products come in boxes and are BPA-free.You can find them in most supermarkets (I was even able to find it in Reading Terminal, huge plus!)

The Alfredo Sauce would be yummy just over your favorite pasta with some fresh parsley, but I once again wanted to use the sauce a little differently to show how versatile the product is. (Don’t forget, I also have a giveaway to win a box of both the Alfredo Sauce AND the Vodka Sauce on my other post! Go check it out for details — ends Friday October, 21 12:00pm EST.)

Because it’s fall, and I cannot manage to satiate my craving for soup, I am making a Creamy Asparagus Soup topped with Crispy Prosciutto.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter (I am using Melt, a butter substitute)

1 garlic clove, minced

1 large shallot, finely chopped

1 teaspoon dried parsley

3 cups chicken broth

1-2 bunches of asparagus, woody ends removed

1 box Pomi Alfredo Sauce

3 slices of prosciutto, cut into thin strips

Salt, to taste

Garlic croutons, optional

Fresh parsley, chopped, optional

Begin by preparing your asparagus. Cut the asparagus into 1-inch pieces. Take the tips (maybe about 10 of them) and reserve for a later use. Chop your shallot and garlic clove.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add ice water to a bowl.

In another pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped shallots, garlic, and dried parsley. Cook for two minutes, stirring.

Add the chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Add the asparagus (without the reserved tips) and cook for 5 minutes.

Pour the mixture in batches into a blender and blend until smooth.

Return to the pot. Cook for ten minutes over medium low heat, stirring occasionally.

At this stage, your pot of water should be boiling. Add the reserved asparagus tips to the boiling water. Cook for 2 minutes and drain. Move the asparagus tips to an ice bath to cool. Once cool, remove from the ice water and set aside.

While waiting for the soup to cook, add the thin strips of prosciutto to a dry saute pan over medium-high heat. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until crisp.

Transfer to paper towels and allow to cool. When cooled, roughly chop the prosciutto and set aside.

Add the Pomi Alfredo Sauce to the pot and stir to combine. Depending on your tastes, you might want to just use half a box. If you want it cheesy, go for the whole thing; if you want it more asparagus-y (is that a word?) use between 1/2 and the full box. Cook for about 5 minutes.

To serve, top with crumbled prosciutto, 2-4 asparagus spears, and a few garlic croutons.

Oh my. This was delicious! I really wish I was able to make this in the spring, when asparagus is it’s freshest, I can only imagine how tasty this soup would be!

The Alfredo sauce complements the brightness of the asparagus and adds to the smooth texture. I loved the bites of prosciutto, which added a burst of saltiness to the soup. The asparagus spears and garlic croutons added nice crunch to an otherwise silky soup.

It’s quite nice looking too isn’t it?

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway here for a chance to win a box of this alfredo sauce (plus a box of the vodka sauce) so that you can try these tasty sauces for yourself!

Grilled Marinated Asparagus

Tonight, I get a night off from cooking! Sort of. My boyfriend and his roommates are firing up the grill and doing the hard part, so all I have to do is make various marinades for the food. We had some asparagus lying around so I decided to just make a simple marinade to make this Grilled Marinated Asparagus.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of asparagus
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 2 large garlic cloves)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon chopped onion flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste

Combine all the ingredients not including the asparagus. Mix well.

Prepare the asparagus. Remove the rough bottoms of the stems. Asparagus tends to snap where the tougher part ends, or you can just cut the asparagus where you think it needs to be trimmed.

asparagus ends

Place the asparagus on a large piece of tin foil. You will make a little packet out of the tin foil.

Fold up each side of the tin foil, twisting the ends so that they stay together.

Pour the marinade over the asparagus.

Close the foil and marinate for at least one hour. You can either remove the asparagus from the foil and place the asparagus right on the grill, cooking for 6-8 minutes, turning carefully half way through, or you can put the asparagus on the grill in the foil, cooking for about 10 minutes. Either way, grill until the asparagus is tender but still has a crunch to it.

there it is. in the tin foil

This turned out really well. The balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce add a bit of tangy-ness to the asparagus without overpowering the delicious natural flavor of asparagus. Many thanks to the grill masters:

Tim

Kevin

for not letting my asparagus get soggy. It was great to only have to do the prep work on a dish… a girl could get used to this!

Yum

Grilled Marinated Asparagus

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

1 bunch of asparagus
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 2 large garlic cloves)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon chopped onion flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Combine all the ingredients not including the asparagus. Mix well.
Prepare the asparagus. Remove the rough bottoms of the stems. Asparagus tends to snap where the tougher part ends, or you can just cut the asparagus where you think it needs to be trimmed.
Place the asparagus on a large piece of tin foil. You will make a little packet out of the tin foil.
Fold up each side of the tin foil, twisting the ends so that they stay together.
Pour the marinade over the asparagus.
Close the foil and marinate for at least one hour. You can either remove the asparagus from the foil and place the asparagus right on the grill, cooking for 6-8 minutes, turning carefully half way through, or you can put the asparagus on the grill in the foil, cooking for about 10 minutes. Either way, grill until the asparagus is tender but still has a crunch to it.

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Asparagus Risotto

I love asparagus. I love risotto. So I thought combining the two would be easy and delicious. I used a recipe from Bon Appétit, just to make sure I knew what I was doing. Well, my poor “asparagus risotto” ended up looking more like asparagus soup with rice. Sigh. It still tasted good though…

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds asparagus

5 cups (about) canned low-salt chicken broth

1 cup water

1 tablespoon butter

1 large onion, chopped

2 cups arborio rice or medium-grain white rice

1/2 cup dry white wine

2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup whipping cream

Fresh rosemary sprigs (optional)

Begin by prepping your asparagus. Trim off the tough ends from the asparagus and discard. Cut off the asparagus tips and place in a bowl. Cut the stalks into ¾ inch pieces and place in another bowl.

Place 2/3 of stalk pieces, 1 cup broth and 1 cup water in blender (note: I would only use 1 cup broth, no water).

Puree until smooth and set aside. Chop your onion. I used large pieces, but I think the smaller the pieces, the better. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 8 minutes.

Add rice and stir for 1 minute.

Add the wine and cook until absorbed, stirring often, about 2 minutes. Add ½ cup broth and the chopped rosemary. Simmer until liquid is absorbed.

Continue to cook for an additional 15 minutes, adding more broth by the ½ cupfuls and allowing liquid to fully absorb before adding more. Stir often.

Add remaining asparagus stalk pieces and reserved asparagus tips and continue cooking rice until it’s tender and creamy, about 10 more minutes. Add extra broth if needed.

Add reserved asparagus puree until absorbed, about 3 minutes. (Note: 3 minutes? Ha. After 12 minutes I just gave up.)

Asparagus soup?

Stir in Parmesan and cream. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with rosemary sprigs if desired.

So, I’m guessing that cutting out the water in the puree may help a bit. I also think it might work to slowly add the puree by the ½ cupfuls versus dumping the whole thing in at once. Despite how ugly it is, it did taste good. If anyone tries this out and manages to make it look aesthetically pleasing, please let me in on your secret!

Pan-Fried Salmon with Citrus Vinaigrette

If you haven’t picked up on this yet, I’m quite the fan of salmon. It’s easy to make, tastes great, and is good for you. To add to my lovely salmon repertoire, I thought I’d give Food & Wine’s Pan-Fried Salmon with Citrus Vinaigrette (and Asparagus) a try.

Ingredients:
1 pound asparagus, stalks trimmed
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 medium shallot, minced
2 tablespoons snipped chives
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 6-oz skinless salmon fillets

Ok. So I cut corners & bought OJ. shh

1/4 cup lemon juice ends up being about 2 lemons

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice is equal to about one lime.

Heat a large pot of salted water over high heat. When the water is boiling, drop the asparagus in, and cook until bright green and crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Pat dry and transfer to a plate. Drizzle some olive oil over the asparagus and toss.

In a small saute pan, mix the orange, lemon, and lime juices and simmer over medium heat until reduced by half, about 10 minutes.

Pour into a bowl and let cool to room temperature. Whisk in the shallot, chives, and 1/4 cup olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat. Season the salmon with salt and pepper

Add to the saute pan, skin side up.

Cook for 3 minutes and flip. The salmon should have a nice browned sear.

Cook for another three minutes until cooked through in the center. Transfer the salmon to plates and spoon some of the citrus vinaigrette on top. Serve the salmon with the asparagus.

Ah. I love any kind of citrus with asparagus and salmon, and this was no exception. It was a quick and easy recipe too, easily made on week days. The citrus vinaigrette would be great on raw spinach as well.

Smoky Asparagus and Mushroom Saute

The April 2011 Issue of Cooking Light included a seemingly simple side dish using a type of mushroom I have yet to work with: Smoky Asparagus and Mushroom Saute. Morels are a wild mushroom; efforts to cultivate this mushroom have been mostly unsuccessful. Because they need to be “hunted” (those that collect morels are called mushroom hunters, I kid you not), they are super expensive– the market I went to was selling them for $69.99/lb., ouch. So this recipe can get pricey fast. I substituted in some hen of the woods (“Maitake”) mushrooms to save my wallet a bit. I ended up spending about $4 on the morels and a $1 and some change on the hen of the woods.

I had some left over asparagus from making the Orzo Risotto with Buttery Shrimp dish a few days ago so this dish was perfect to use ingredients I mostly had on hand.

Ingredients:

2 slices bacon
1 tablespoon butter (omit to make dairy free)
3 oz quartered fresh morel mushrooms
3 oz chopped hen of the woods
1 pound asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons chopped chives

Continue reading Smoky Asparagus and Mushroom Saute

Orzo Risotto with Buttery Shrimp

I am always in search of seafood dishes that aren’t just salmon. Don’t get me wrong, I love salmon, but I think it’s time for me to finally expand my culinary repertoire. I found this recipe on Food & Wine and was intrigued. Traditional risotto is near and dear to my heart. When I first realized that learning to feed myself may be useful, risotto was one of the first dishes I learned how to make. (Fun fact: I even won a little Top Chef contest in college making my lovely risotto, that’s right). So the idea of an “orzo risotto” made me very happy.

How can you say no to this?

Ingredients: (I cut this recipe in half, the original is linked above)

8 thin asparagus

1 cup orzo

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 pound shelled and deveined medium shrimp

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup chicken stock

1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

Ingredients

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Make sure to have plenty of water in there, you’ll need to reserve some of this later. Add the asparagus and cook over high heat until tender, about 5 minutes.

Transfer the asparagus to a plate with a slotted spoon. Add the orzo to the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

While the orzo is cooking, cut the asparagus into 1-inch lengths.

In another skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Once melted, reduce heat to medium and cook until the butter begins to brown

“beurrer noisette” = brown butter by the way

Add the shrimp, season with salt and pepper. I suggest having the salt and pepper right next to the stove, the shrimp start cooking and turning pink almost immediately.

about 10 second after adding the shrimp to the butter

Cook over medium heat until pink and curled, about 1 minute per side.

With a slotted spoon, add the shrimp to the asparagus. Reserve the butter in the skillet but remove from heat.

reserved shrimp and asparagus

Drain the cooked risotto over a bowl, reserving 1/8 cup of the cooking water. Return the orzo to the saucepan and stir in brown butter. Cook over high heat and add the chicken stock and cooking water, scraping up any brown bits that may be stuck to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.

watching orzo cook is comparable to watching paint dry

Cook over moderate heat, stirring until creamy, 2-3 minutes. Stir in asparagus and shrimp.

Remove from heat and stir in parsley and the Parmesan. Season with salt and pepper if needed. Transfer risotto to serving dishes and sprinkle with more Parmesan.

ta da

I love the colors in this dish (if you didn’t pick up on that from the 50 photos you just had to scroll through). Happily, it tastes just as good as it looks. If I make this in the future though, I think I’d prefer the shrimp to have a little bit of a kick (some paprika? maybe a bit of Old Bay? hmm) but this dish is beautiful and tasty just the way it is.

Chicken and Asparagus with Melted Gruyere

Trying to eat something other than pasta, but still craving a decadent comfort food dish, I found this recipe for Chicken & Asparagus with Melted Gruyère cheese.

Ingredients:
4 ounces asparagus
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon flour, divided
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Salt, to taste
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1/2 cup white wine
1/3 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon (or 1 teaspoon dried)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2/3 cup shredded Gruyère cheese

To steam the asparagus, place asparagus in a steamer basket over 1 inch of boiling water. Cover and steam for 3 minutes. Remove asparagus and set aside.

Whisk broth and 1 teaspoon flour in a small bowl until smooth. Set aside.

Place the remaining flour in a shallow dish. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper and dredge both sides in the flour, shaking off excess flour.

Heat oil in a sautee pan over medium heat. Add chicken and cook for 3 to 4 minutes per side. The chicken should have a nice brown sear on it, but the heat may need to be adjusted to prevent burning. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.

Add shallot, wine and the reserved broth mixture to the pan. Cook over medium heat, until thickened (about 2 minutes) stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in sour cream, tarragon, lemon juice and the reserved asparagus until combined. Return the chicken to the pan and coat with the sauce. Add cheese on top of each piece of chicken, cover and continue cooking until the cheese is melted (about 2 minutes).

Return the chicken to the pan and coat with the sauce. Add cheese on top of each piece of chicken, cover and continue cooking until the cheese is melted (about 2 minutes).


Finished Dish

Yum. I really liked this meal. The sauce was rich and creamy, I didn’t even miss the lack of starch. This is definitely a meal that would be good for guests; it looks much more difficult than it actually is. If you can, try to get fresh tarragon, it really brightens the dish!