Mmm...asparagus!

Someone asked me for the recipe on Facebook, and by the time I had typed it up in the reply to comment box, it was too long to post. So I'm throwing it up here. After I made turkey croquettes/meatballs, I was going to make something curry-esque with chickpeas, but I had a VERY old bunch of asparagus chillin in the fridge and knew they needed to be dealt with. The turkey croquettes are a tad on the dry side (they're made with ground breast meat), so I wanted something a bit saucy.

I just sort of made it up on the fly... My roommate made some amazing honey dijon green beans last night, so I was inspired by her.

I had already cut up onions and garlic (for that scrapped Indian dish). So I threw them in the pan with olive oil and let them get very soft and delicious. I was going for "caramelized" but they got a bit darker quicker than I wanted (yeah, I'm impatient).

Add the asparagus to the pan - I cut the spears in half, feel free to do whatever. Season well with salt and pepper. Let them saute with the onions and garlic for a bit - not too long, you don't want mushy asparagus at the end.

Then I just eye-balled water, dijon mustard and honey. It was probably about a half-cup of water, and a few tablespoons each of the mustard and honey. Let it come to a boil, and simmer. It's going to look thin at first, but reducing it by simmering gets it nice and thick, and the honey helps fantastically. Mine was probably a little sweet by the end, but the asparagus were more done than I normally go for, so I didn't want to keep them in the pan.

I threw some sliced almonds in at the end basically because my roommate had them left over from her green beans last night. Yum!

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Also, here's an incredibly easy idea for asparagus. This is what I normally do. So tasty! Basically, trim the ends of the spears, throw on a cookie sheet, add olive oil and salt and pepper and toss together. You want everything coated, but not soaked, and season liberally. Throw in the oven ~450, or even on broil. Don't touch them - the more you move veggies, the less brown they get - for a little bit. Cook until the desired tenderness.

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Oh, since I'm doing a cooking blog at the moment, mmm turkey croquettes/meatballs. Thank you Shira's grandmother! I took the basic idea that I got from Shira and her gma, and changed it a bit. These are really tasty, neutral balls o' protein that I figure I can pair with something like that Indian chickpea dish, or top with tomato sauce and cheese, or whatever.

1 lb ground turkey breast
1 egg
1 cup protein chips "bread crumbs" - I grind up Kay's Natural's parmesan crisps
A chunk of onion, a couple of garlic cloves
1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper, 1/2-3/4 tsp salt, a hearty sprinkle (1/4-1/2 tsp?) red pepper flakes

In different stages/cups, I do these steps with my magic bullet blender: grind protein chips. Puree onion and garlic. "Beat" egg.

Add everything together in a bowl, and mix well. Form into small balls, patties, whatever - I normally make "patties" smaller than a hamburger, bigger than a meatball, but today I made balls. For me, I think it made about 28 balls, but at the rate I've been snacking on them, I can't give you a definite answer. In a pan with a nice coating of olive oil heated to medium-high, brown well. Voila, you're done!

Oh, and a trick Shira suggested when we first made these this summer: We weren't sure if we had seasoned enough (we used italian seasoning in them, which is a great choice), so we just cooked up a bite or two of it and went from there. You can always remix more of whatever it's lacking and trial cook again or just go for it.