Challenge: Asparagus

Dom has been sick. So basically I have been cooking and cooking and cooking. Not because he will eat anything, but because apparently that is what I do these days. In the name of documentation I figured that I would share with you what I have been doing.

Also I like to have all the good recipes in one place and I have been compiling a family cookbook to have printed, but I am running out of room and the internet is vast and apparently unending, so I think I am going to opt to keep them here.

We don't eat enough vegetables.

I am trying to make more. It helps having the garden, makes it easier to not have spoiling fresh food lying around (even though we usually do anyway).

I read an article about how Asparagus is ridiculously good for us. It can basically cure you of cancer because it cleans out all the bad stuff. Of course all of this has not been studied long enough to be proven, but that is good enough for me. I am sure our livers could use a little extra help and I like Asparagus, it seems exotic somehow.

So I bought a bunch and they just sat around for a while. Finally I was hungry and Dom was sick, so I figured if I was cooking only for myself I could make whatever I wanted. I looked in the fridge and decided for Asparagus since it probably didn't have much time left on this earth whether I ate it or not.

Not sure how to cook it, I turned to the International Cookbook. Dom found it for me at a used bookstore in Riverside, CA and I love it because it was printed in 1929. The recipes are so brief, as though I should know what I am doing. And it brings to mind the thought that our great-grandparents probably cooked that way and made recipes and elaborate meals just like the ones suggested in the book.

But I have only made the Chocolate Sauce recipe and the Hot Cocoa out of it. Awhile ago I had decided that come hell or high water I was going to cook/bake every recipe in that book. With the exception of things that I can't find like "Squab" (WHAT is that?) and things that are too expensive like the 50 or more recipes that include lobster.

So finally, today, I started. I looked up Asparagus in the index and flipped to the

proper page and all that was listed was...

Easy enough. So I grabbed my meager ingredients and got to work.

I got some water boiling...

Then this too easy recipe, got complicated. I didn't get how I was supposed to peel them, so I just skipped it. I was pretty sure that I have eaten them un-peeled before. I just chopped off the ends.

Then popped them in my pot, which was too small.

But I am lazy so I just smushed the lid on and hoped for the best and I set the timer for 20 minutes.

I was surprised by how overdone they already seemed. Maybe my boil was on too high a flame?Oh well, I skipped the hollandaise and just opted for butter.

It was better than I expected and bonus was I got to check off Asparagus in the book. 3 recipes down, only like 500 to go. But I am going to take it easy.