Parmesan Asparagus

Fortunately for my parents, I was one of those kids who actually enjoyed their vegetables growing up, and still do. They were never having to force me to order them as we sat down at a nice steak house. Because of that, people would often stare in restaurants as I would order a side of broccoli instead of French fries.

 I love coming up with new ways to add a little flavor to them but not completely do away with the natural flavor of the vegetable. This week’s recipe can be thrown together in a matter of minutes and cooked in less than 10 minutes.

 Ingredients:

• Salt (can be any variety such as sea salt or pink Himalayan)
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Parmesan cheese
• Asparagus 

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I did not include any measurements and that was on purpose. A lot of my cooking is not a “fine science”. My reasoning is that everyone has a different size family. For me, I’m cooking for one so I’m probably going to only cook 6 to 8 stalks of asparagus and I will still have leftovers. A family of 5 could be cooking the entire head. So for this recipe, use your best judgment.

Directions:

• Preheat oven to the broil setting.
• Cut the ends of the asparagus off, roughly 1 to 1 ½ inches from the bottom.
• In a mixing bowl or baking pan, mix together the salt, pepper, olive oil and asparagus. Make sure to lightly coat the asparagus but everywhere.
• Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place the asparagus neatly next to each other on the cookie sheet.
• Place in the oven for 2-3 minutes, checking often. Once it has begun to soften, sprinkle the parmesan cheese all over the top. Place back in the broiler for a few more minutes until the cheese has melted and is slightly golden on top.
• Remove from oven; once removed, make sure to separate the stalks slightly so it will be easier to serve

This goes very well as a side dish with some nice steaks on the grill and garlic bread (recipe on last week’s post).

Bri