asparagus - - Page 3

by BS

Fix the Fuck Up: Asparagus Tamed

This one was all you, ES-ers! I had no idea why my Fine Cooking-inspired asparagus pasta strands were such a horrible, ugly, falling-apart mess:

But you guys were all like, duh, just shave your strands off the stalks before you cook them, and it totally worked. I cut off the asparagus tips, then used the vegetable peeler to shave fettuccine-like strands off the stalks, which worked much, much better than trying to shave the steamed asparagus. The first few strips I shaved off were beautiful, pasta-like green strands, although it got harder to shave them as the stalk got smaller, but still, infinitely more successful than the first go-around.

I cooked the fettuccine (OK well, I had used all my fettuccine in the original fuck up, so I subbed linguine) for five minutes, then threw the asparagus strands and tips into the same boiling water and cooked for another five minutes.

How much better does that look? Thank, team ES!

in Veggie 2 comments

by BS

Friday Fuck-Ups: Asparagus Disaster

I just recently found out about Fine Cooking Magazine. Does anyone else read this? It’s actually great — a glossy magazine devoted entirely to recipes and useful cooking tips. None of the boring wine recommendations or 10,000-word essays on strolling through Paris that clog up Gourmet and BonApp. It’s actually more like Cook’s Illustrated, except with color photos.

In the front of the magazine, they have a feature called “What We’re Cooking Now.” They select three seasonal ingredients, and each of three editors details a quick, easy way to use them up. In a recent spring issue, they covered asparagus, arugula, and rhubarb. As you know, we’ve been fiending for ways to use up all this beautiful spring asparagus and arugula, so I was into this idea, and particularly loved one ed’s suggestion for asparagus:

Just Me and My Kadhai

**Girlfriend Guilt Trip Alert**

80P just finished his first year of grad school and, like a good girlfriend, I planned to take him out to celebrate. Well, Monday night in the District was cold and rainy so I found inspiration from my kitchen for our meal. While I was at my sister’s college graduation this weekend I persuaded 80 to leave the apartment for the first time in 72 hours (papers, papers, papers) to pick me up some asparagus and arugula from the opening weekend of the Mt. Pleasant farmers’ market.

I imagined a luscious spring dinner of risotto piled high on stalks of asparagus. Mine would be topped with a poached egg; 80P would get bacon strips. But, alas, the twenty two year olds texted.

80 goes to school with some straight-from-college dudes and they were down for some serious Adams Morgan (re: shit show, for out of towners) boozing. So he left before I even finished formulating (thought of subbing havarti for parm) my meal.

So there I was with my friends: asparagus, butter, garlic, egg. And you know what, I managed just fine without 80. Thanks, in part, to my Kadhai.