Let us lead with a lovely food photo–(I like it when my food photos are at the top of the page, like Clotilde and Heidi do on their sites):
How scrumptious does that look? Don’t you want to lick the screen?
It’s the simplest recipe ever and it comes from Epicurious. Here’s the link for those who are so inspired they must click and make it right away.
Everyone else: let me summarize what you do. You can pick and choose which steps appeal to you. For starters, there’s the roasting of the asparagus and this is the best part. Now that asparagus is in season, you should do this at least once—it transforms the asparagus into something sweet and decadent with the most minimal of efforts.
1. Put a rack in the middle of the oven. Heat it to 500 degrees. Take your asparagus, wash them, dry them, and bend them holding each end. The bottoms will break off—you can discard them.
Now simply place these asparagi on a baking sheet. Toss with a drizzle of olive oil (I think the recipe says 2 to 3 Tbs, but I just gave it a generous drizzle.) Now sprinkle lots of salt and pepper over it. Don’t be shy, now, it’s important.
Place in the oven and roast for 7 minutes. You’ll hear the sizzle. It’s exciting! Take them out and set them aside.
2. Now for the bacon. If you’re not a bacon person, you can skip this step but I think the bacon’s important. Seriously, think it over—I’m sure you’ll come around.
All you do is fry the bacon on medium heat until crispy and drain on paper towels. That’s it. It’s THAT simple.
3. So now take the asparagus, put on a serving plate, and sprinkle some goat cheese over it. The goat cheese I bought I wasn’t happy with—it was a harder, less creamier brand and I didn’t like it. But it didn’t matter. Just break it up and sprinkle it over the asparagus; then the bacon. Finally, take a lemon, cut it in half, squeeze it over the top and grate the lemon peel over everything afterwards and that’s it.
You’re done! What a lovely dish! All thanks to me! (Ok, and maybe Epicurious.) Happy Spring.
I thought the bacon in the photo was flower petals. Bacon is still nice for Spring though.
Another variation is to layer roasted asparagus and roughly chopped prosciutto, and shave some parmesan or asiago (or any other Mediterranean cheese really — manchego is good too) over top.
The options are unlimited — roast asparagus is just a brilliant base for almost anything, isn’t it?
I love adding roasted garlic into the melange. Its amazing how the flavors work so well. My favorite treat. Grocery store HERE I come!
If you don’t want to wait for the oven to warm up, you can do the asparagus dry on a grill pan or under the broiler. Easy peasy. It was 84 degrees by me yesterday so the thought of the oven heating up kind of makes me wince.
Try that roasted asparagus on a white pizza. Yowza.
Y’all haven’t lived until you’ve tried Barefoot Contessa’s Parmesan Roasted Asparagus (from BC Family Style). I’m salivating just typing about it.
Is “asparagi” really the plural of asparagus? Dictionary.com wouldn’t tell me!
I’ve been hearing good things about roasted asparagus … I’m definitely going to try this. Now I finally have something to do with that package of goat cheese, too. Excellent!
that ‘asparagi’ cought my attention as well. Looked it up and it seems to me that the plural is ‘asparagus’.
Anyways, discovered your site a few weeks back and i love it. come here everyday now. Keep it up:)
Ps. making those oatsie, coconutsie, rasberrie thingies this afternoon, exciting!
Another great way to use roasted asparagus is to toss it with some pasta that has been coated in a goat cheese sauce (goat cheese, lemon juice, little olive oil, some milk, and some herbs warmed over a double-boiler). Probably adding some bacon to that would be divine.
I don’t like asparagus, but I do like your site, and I visit a lot. My blog is just personal, so when I saw I got a random visitor off of a yahoo search for “barefoot feet grody,” I had to check it out. Randomly, I was #4 for that search, and you were #5! (It’s the Barefoot Contessa’s fault, in your case.) ;-)
Also whats great (although extravagant) is to take the roasted asparagus that has been salted, peppered and olive oiled before roasting and drizzle a little white truffle oil and grate some fresh parmesan. I had it at this great restaurant in Evanston, Illinois last summer. It was amazing and easy to recreate.
Laura: what was the restaurant? Hubby and I are always cruising through the Chicagoland area on our way to Michigan and we love good eats.
Is there anything that *doesn’t* taste better with bacon and goat cheese?
Jello?
Twinkies?
Its called the Chef’s Station and its on Davis Street in downtown Evanston. Its a great place with the menu constantly changing… it was there that I had my first soft shell crab :) And they also had an amazing goat’s cheese and tomato pie/quiche. Its a cute (somewhat eclectic) place underneath a train station and in a great location in Evanston. The only thing is that the food is pricey, but worth it!
Somewhat random, but in Stockton, CA they are having their annual Asparagus Festival! How great is that? Serving up great things like fried asparagus, asparagus raviolis, asparagus every way imaginable!