Lovely Asparagus

Lovely Asparagus

Asparagus is a vegetable that is often synonymous with spring. It can be found in abundance. It is considered a vegetable that prefers cooler temperatures, and usually, seeds are started in the late winter and then set out as soon as the soil is warm enough.

This lovely asparagus is commonly bright green, but can be found in purple and in white, contains a lot of great vitamins and minerals for you.

One spear of medium size thickness will have only approximately 3 calories and contains 0 g of these: polyunsaturated fats, monosaturated fats, cholesterol, and sodium. Here are just a few more highlights of asparagus, carbs 0.6g, fiber 0.3g, sugar 0.3g, and protein 0.4g. There’s a lot to that little medium size spear, but wait it also contains vitamins A, C, E, K, and B6, also minerals like folate, copper, iron, and calcium.

While the purple asparagus has the highest antioxidant fighting power and the white the lowest, the green asparagus is widely available and with the overabundance, I usually buy a lot of it. I then clean it and trim them and the excess will get frozen for use later.

This is a versatile vegetable that can be cooked by roasting it, grilling it, broiling it, baking it, pickling it, it can be put into soups, sauces, and eggs for example. It can even be baked into loaves of bread. It goes well with fish, poultry, beef, and pork.

Don’t overcook it though, as it can lose its vitamin value.

Today I want to share a very simple recipe that can be done in your oven or even out on the grill. It is one that my kids big or little really enjoyed, and it is so easy.

Gather your handfuls of asparagus. Make sure you rinse the veggies off. When I shop I look for the thinnest possible stems. This ensures that you will get tasty stems. The thicker the asparagus is, the tougher it will be.

I line up the cleaned stems and trim the old and grainy stems and discard. *There are times that I take pieces of the stems and add them to a Keto type soup I make for myself. When all of the stems are trimmed you’re ready to bake.

INGREDIENTS

 ¼ c Olive oil

pats of butter (optional)

Finely chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)

About ½ c of Parmesan cheese.

Foil and cookie sheet

TO DO

I foil line a cookie sheet and preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line up stems in a row (this makes dispersing the ingredients easier)

BAKE

Next, drizzle the olive oil all over the stems (try to evenly include all the stems)

Then, sprinkle the garlic over trying to also get this evenly dispersed as well.

Finally gratuitously sprinkle parmesan cheese (or Romano if you prefer) all over using your judgment on how much you would like to use. Also if you so choose to use the butter, place them around now. I use them because it helps them taste richer, this is optional.

*If you like you can add pink Himalayan salt and black pepper

Now, place the cookie sheet in the oven for about 12-15 minutes depending on the size of the stems.

I love to have mine have a bright green appearance to keep the vitamin count up, so I usually pull them out at about the 14 minutes mark. *Oven temperatures vary be aware of this.

TIPS

One can gather the asparagus in a bowl and dredge ingredients over them further ensuring that they get a good coating.

Once cooked asparagus can be tossed into salads and into sauces, made into appetizers, you will be in heaven tasting the bacon wrapped spear! Don’t be shy try new things; you would be surprised that asparagus may become your go-to veggie!