asparagus Archives - Slice Of Honey

As some of you may know, I followed a pretty strict vegetarian diet for about a year in 2017-2018. I’ve loved vegetables for as long as I can remember so it wasn’t too far of a stretch for me to jump in completely. When I took the time to truly plan my meals, it was a relatively easy diet for me to follow and I truly enjoyed it. When I didn’t take that time to plan and prep though, it was rough. Every Wednesday night my husband and I join two other couples for what we call small group. Fellowship is probably a better word to describe these evenings. We share a meal, talk about Jesus and talk about life. I love our Wednesday nights and these friends are really more like family. However, cooking on those nights became stressful. I would make a dish for the non-vegetarian group of friends. Cook something for my daughter (who wasn’t eating with us or I would have served her the same thing). And after each of those, I was still cooking a vegetarian dinner for myself. It was too much. Too much to accomplish within a small window of time after work and before getting our group together. Ultimately, the diet wasn’t worth the cooking chaos and I started reincorporating meats into my routine. Perhaps down the road I will give it another go but right now it isn’t the right option for me.

I still enjoy cooking vegetarian based dishes at home when life isn’t too crazy though. This is why I have kept the blog as primarily vegetarian. I love the challenge and health benefits of keeping more plants on my plate than meats. Even when we go out to dinner I often choose a vegetarian option. One of my favorite things to do is to order a few different side dishes or appetizers and eat those as my dinner rather than ordering an entrée. I feel like I have more options that way. Plus, I feel like I get to try a wider variety of what the restaurant has to offer. With this in mind, I also enjoy making side dishes at home and claiming them as my main course. I discovered last week that I can eat about a pound of asparagus on my own. Sorry to my husband for not sharing, haha! This recipe is a new one for us but is so easy and tasty that it might very well make it to the usual rotation of favorite recipes.

Tips:

Feel free to swap out the grape tomatoes for whatever small sweet tomatoes you can find at your local store.
I highly recommend sticking with fresh herbs on this one. Dried herbs will not give the same fresh flavor.

Sauteed asparagus and tomatoes with parmesan.

Parmesan Asparagus & Tomatoes

A flavorful, savory side dish that is quick and easy to make.

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Course Side Dish

Servings 4

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 lb asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1" pieces
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
1 teaspoon fresh oregano
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
3 teaspoons grated parmesan cheese
salt to taste

Instructions

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, stir frequently. Add asparagus, stirring occasionally, and cook until slightly tender and starting to get char markings, about 5 minutes. Stir in oregano and thyme. Push asparagus to one side of the pan, place tomatoes on other side. Cook tomatoes until they soften slightly and start to get char markings, about 3 minutes. Add parmesan and salt, stir all ingredients together in the pan until well combined.

Keyword Asparagus, Easy Recipe, Side Dish, Tomatoes, Vegetables, Vegetarian Recipe

Easy, healthy and delicious. That is what I love about roasted vegetables but let’s get real here, I’m over the boring potatoes or broccoli. I still need easy but I also need variety both for my palette and my sanity. Why not experiment with a variety of vegetables? I really don’t think you can go wrong with roasting any vegetable out there. My latest vegetable obsession is asparagus so I sometimes add extra of it in this dish. Feel free to adjust quantities based on what is a favorite in your household.

Tips:

Watch the pine nuts carefully as you toast them, they burn easily.
Depending on how evenly your oven cooks, you might want to rotate the pan half way through the roasting process.

Roasted Vegetables with Lemon Dressing

Ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus cut into 1” pieces (discard stem end pieces)

1 large red bell pepper diced into bite size pieces

1 large zucchini, sliced and quartered (or two small zucchini, sliced and halved)

1 ½ cups matchstick carrots

1 medium shallot, chopped

1 ½ teaspoons garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Salt & ground black pepper

1/3 cup pine nuts

Dressing:

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Juice of 1 medium lemon

1 Tablespoon chopped fresh basil

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Place all vegetables in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Stir ingredients until evenly coated with olive oil. Spread vegetable mixture onto prepared cookie sheet. Roast in oven for 20 minutes.

While vegetables are roasting, place pine nuts in a skillet over medium heat. Stir nuts in pan until they are slightly brown and aromatic then remove from heat.

In a small bowl, mix all dressing ingredients.

When vegetables are finished roasting, put them back in the large bowl. Pour in the dressing and add the pine nuts. Stir until all ingredients are evenly coated in the dressing.