Asparagus and Poached Eggs

Background

Given that this is the Facebook recipe post that broke the camel's back and inspired the creation of this blog, I thought I'd make it the first recipe.  It debuted on my profile a little over a year ago, but now that Lent has rolled around again, this seems a good time to post a vegetarian dish.

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The first Friday of Lent this year, I found myself longing for a vegetarian dish I'd had several times in Madison at Osteria Papavero. It was a simple asparagus and poached egg dish (ehh, probably swimming in some decent amount of butter), and I think it's safe to say, it was one of the best things I've ever eaten. Ever. But really, there's not a *lot* to it in and of itself (Osteria Papavero is more of a Mediterranean Tapas place). This is my attempt to recreate it as a dinner.

Ingredients

1 C. brown rice
1-2 T. dried parsley flakes
1-2 t. onion salt (or garlic salt)
1 lb. asparagus, tough ends removed
2-3 eggs (one for each person you will be serving)
2-3 slices muenster cheese (same deal)

Directions

Cook rice according to directions on container. When rice is cooked, season with parsley and garlic salt. Meanwhile, boil asparagus about 5 minutes (shorter if you like it snappier, longer if you like it mushier). Remove and cover to keep warm. In asparagus water (waste not, want not), poach eggs for 3-5 minutes. A three-minute egg's yolk will run when you cut into it, a 5 minute egg's yolk will be much more solid.

To serve, spoon rice into a bowl. Top each bowl of rice with 4-5 spears of asparagus. Top the asparagus with an egg and top the egg with a slice of cheese. If you like your cheese more melted, you can place the dish under the broiler for just a few minutes (please be sure it's a broiler-safe dish!).

Yield: this served me and one other quite hungry boy :) Typically, I would say it serves 3.



Variation: Asparagus and Poached Eggs Over Pasta in a Lemon-Basil Oil

Omit the rice, parsley and onion salt from the above recipe and instead use:
1 C. whole grain pasta (the shape isn't important; I used elbows)
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/4 C. olive oil (or more depending on potency of lemon)
1 t. dried basil leaves
salt to taste

Prepare as above.  But before assembling the dish, whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, basil and salt and pour over drained pasta.  Stir well, then assemble dish.

Pictured below is this variation with a bit of crisp bacon added... because my husband loves bacon - in a sort of alarming way - so bacon, he gets.  He also cannot eat dairy, so the cheese is omitted from this picture.

Obligatory Welcome Post

Welcome to my blog!  Did I get that right?  I am fairly certain I am now supposed to say something clever about this being "my little corner of the internet" or similar.  But really all I want to do is introduce you to what I hope to accomplish here and why I started this blog.

Several years ago, the younger folk in my graduate program encouraged me to create a Facebook profile, which I shied away from at first.  But after some healthy and continuous encouragement, I gave in and quickly began using it as a way to share my experiences in the kitchen.  In addition to a photo album of the dishes I created, whose title inspired that of this blog, I also discovered that most of the "notes" I posted were really just recipes.  And they got a lot of response.  After a while, I tuned into the chorus of "you should start a blog" and decided to make the move over to blogspot.  Thus, here I am to share my experiences, recipes and pictures with you.  Any questions?

So seriously, are you any good?  Yeah, I hear you - you want credentials.  If I'm being perfectly honest, I have none.  I am not a professional chef, nor have I ever been paid to cook for anyone (save one very cool vegan cupcake gig for a friend's client's wedding).  In high school, I worked as a drive-thru gal at the Long John Silver's, but my m.o. there was to stay as far away from the grease vats as possible!  And though I cupped a lot of coleslaw, I don't count that as kitchen skill.

But you're still writing a cooking blog?  I am.  While I think culinary classes, schools, etc. are very cool and quite valuable, I do not believe they are the only way in which knowledge is gained.  Most of my cooking experience started in the home.  My family spent a lot of time in the kitchen.  Whether Grandma was making cappelletti or Dad was whipping up homemade pizza dough, it was usually a family affair.  By late elementary school, I even had a specialty: banana bread.  I can't ever recall being kicked out of a kitchen.

Then you mostly do pasta and baked goods?  I have a propensity for baked goods, it's true.  When my husband stopped tolerating dairy, I dove into the world of vegan baking and got a kick out of it.  But I also just like fooling around in the kitchen, in general.  Dad is much the same way; when I was young, he'd routinely invent new dishes to feed us.  If we liked it, he wrote down what he did and we all got to pick a name for the recipe.  Our favorite was a breakfast pizza of sorts that we decided to call Something Good For Breakfast solely for the purpose of having sleepovers, yelling downstairs in front of our friends, "are we having something good for breakfast today?" and getting the response, "no!"

Are you always that creative?  Of course!  No.  I'm not.  Most of my recipe titles are far more usefully descriptive and far less humorous.  And sometimes I get stuck in an ingredient rut.  For these reasons, I *always* welcome feedback.  Please, let me know what you think.  Try my recipes, see what works for you.  If you make modifications, let everyone on the blog know what was particularly good or conversely, what didn't turn out well.  As you can likely glean from what I've told you of my experience, I really think cooking is a community affair; the internet is just a tool to expand that community.  I look forward to hearing from you all.