An Aahaa moment!

Aren't there times in life that you wished you knew the answer to the one question that kept haunting you often? Just the "Damn, I NEED to find out" feeling?

And? How did it feel when you found your answer? Ecstatic? Disappointed? Mmeh?
Or, did you scream, "Hey! I already knew that!"?

I had an ecstatic moment the other day. I'm usually in my Zen mode when I'm cooking. I will mildly smile as I work with desserts. Am positively happy when I work with chocolate (at home and at work), and was absolutely thrilled to learn this technique of printing pretty patterns on dipped chocolate truffles!

Hence, I can make these! Super Yay!

Yes, I eat salads too!

When it comes to salads, well, I basically hate salads. Except when it has crisp apples, some candied walnuts and a good helping of Gorgonzola thrown in. But today I made a huge bowl of salad that I cannot stop eating. It's so good, I feel like I'm eating ice cream, or chocolate, or both. That guilty.

So what did it have? Asparagus, garlic, red onion, red pepper flakes, sea salt, cracked black pepper and olive oil. Use tender asparagus and trim their ends (basically bend the fat end, and when it snaps - that's how much you trim off the entire bundle). Mince a clove of garlic. Shave a quarter of a red onion into thin slices (yes shave it on a mandoline or slice it paper thin. This is important). This is your 'mise en place' - everything in place for your salad. Oh, also preheat your oven to 375F.

On a sheet tray, arrange the trimmed asparagus to form a single layer. Sprinkle some olive oil to coat the asparagus and to ensure all the seasonings stick. Add the garlic, onions and all the seasonings. Use your fingers to toss everything together and again, arrange the asparagus to form a single layer. The onions and garlic will hide between, over and under the asparagus and that's just how you want it to be.

Then place the tray in the oven and wait for 10-15 minutes. It should be done in 10 minutes. I let it go to 15 and the slightly over cooked asparagus was tender and creamy as I bit into them. And the 15 minutes helped the onions brown to sweet perfection (see this is why the thin slices are important).

The salad itself doesn't look great - limp green spears and browned onion bits. It was good hot out of the oven, but great when I let it sit in the refrigerator for about an hour. Then I started eating. Picking up each spear, trying to add the onions over each for the perfect bite.


I started with about 25 asparagus spears, and then there were none.
Not really, I left 2 for boy to taste.