Guess what I have been making this week?!?! ASPARAGUS. Our friend brought us 9 bundles from work, plus apples, tomatoes, and blueberries. The kiddo loves apples and blueberries, those will get gobbled up quick! I gave a few bundles of the asparagus away, but still had a shit ton left. I have made a few things. I want to make soup. But no one will eat it but me. The hubby does not like asparagus. Despises it. The kiddo does not like soup. I may still make a small batch for me to try. If I do, I will share the recipe.
I have been busy with both jobs this week. In fact, I work tonight. This morning I went tanning and got my nails refreshed. With my time in between that and work I am hoping to knock out a couple of posts. Therefore, I grabbed my laptop and headed to the coffee shop. That just sounded relaxing to me. I don’t think adult women pamper themselves enough, including myself. So, this morning I made it my goal to do a little self-pampering. Leaving for Florida in a couple weeks with the girls, will have lots of self-pampering and relaxation then!
Ok, back to asparagus. One of the things I made was “new to me” as far as using asparagus. And it turned out wonderful! I made a pasta salad with asparagus. I have been packing it for lunch at both jobs as well as a dinner side for the kiddo. It’s lasted all week, definitely nice to have in the fridge. It’s basically an Italian pasta salad. You can use whatever you want for it. I boiled my asparagus, then I boiled my noodles and let them cool while I worked on that evening’s dinner. When cool I chopped onions, sun dried tomatoes (in olive oil, don’t rinse), mozzarella cheese and black olives. I tossed that all together with the pasta, asparagus bites and shredded parmesan. In a separate bowl I whisked together olive oil, zest and juice from one lemon, melted butter, dried parsley, salt and pepper. Tossed it in in the salad and mixed. With my hands. I wasn’t serving this to anyone outside my family. Sometimes mixing with your hands just works better. Chilled in the fridge for a bit and called it good. And good it sure was! You could just use Italian dressing instead of the dressing I made. From scratch is more fun, in my opinion.
Towards the end of the week, it was getting a bit on the dry side. I added Catalina dressing to freshen it up. Wow! That was even better. I choose that because we had a bottle with just a little left. Good way to clean out something from the fridge.
My goal for using the produce from our friend, the plate licker, was to try not to need much from the store. Using what we had on hand is how I formulated my ideas. The only thing I had to buy here was a fresh lemon and sun-dried tomatoes. And I didn’t really have to, I could have used the fresh tomatoes. But the sun-dried ones sent the flavor to a whole new level.
I also made blue berry muffins from scratch. They were decent. Nothing special here. Other than when finished I put them under the broiler for a minute to toast up the muffin tops. These muffin tops were spectacular. Even better than “Top of the Muffin to You”. Seinfeld fans will know what I’m talking about.
