Asparagus and lentil salad with Grana Padano

Create a salad bed of hand cut lettuce, shredded beetroot, thinly sliced tomatoes and any other green salad you might have in your refrigerator. Cover with cooked bacon pieces (to taste) and a small tin of lentils – if you don’t want to cook lentils from scratch. Season with good quality bought or home made Ceaser salad dressing.

In the meantime wash and chop in 2 or 3 cm long pieces a bunch of green asparagus and stir fry for about 6 minutes with soya pieces and some sea salt to taste. When ready,  arrange on  the salad whilst still very warm. Sprinkle heavily with grated Grana Padano and ground pepper.

 

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Tastiest and easiest asparagus soup ever

I love this one as it is so easy to make with only a couple of steps, and the visual result is a deep tasty green.

First fry one chopped onion and 2 cloves garlic in one big tablespoon of butter.  One transparent add the following and cook for 5 mins:

• 3 small potatoes, roughly chopped in 2 cm cubes
• 200 ml chicken stock
• good pinch of sea salt, to taste
• one tablespoon of dried Italian herbs

Afterwards add the following and cook for 10 mins:

• around 350g of green asparagus, chopped in 3 cms pieces
• 500 ml chicken stock
• 100 ml milk
• 2 tbls (wholemeal) flour

Then add the following and cook for a couple of mins, making sure the potatoes and asparagus are done:

• big bunch of spinach
• lots of fresh ground pepper

Blend with a hand-blender.  Serve with some wholemeal bread.

Quick but delicious oven roasted asparagus

 

Asparagus is healthy and easy to cook, but also easy to get wrong.  The following takes literally 5 minutes to prepare and is ideal as a starter or even a snack.

You will need:

• 400-500g asparagus
• generous amount of olive oil
• 1 heaped tsp sea salt
• 2 gloves garlic, finely chopped
• bunch of fresh Melissa/lemon balm leaves
• ground black pepper
• balsamic vinegar

In a small bowl mix the oil, chopped Melissa, garlic, salt and black pepper.  Arrange the asparagus on a sheet of baking paper on a tray and cover with the oil mixture.  Spray or sprinkle some balsamic vinegar.

Bake at 220oC for around 20 minutes or until the asparagus is done and slightly golden.

If lemon balm is not available, use some lemon juice instead.