by Robin Horrigan

I must admit that this is a much more complicated veggie side dish than I normally attempt on a weeknight. But since we just had steak tips on the grill to go with this, it was still completely manageable. A little bit complicated to blanch the veggies, then cold shock them, dry them, and cut them up a bit… plus I needed the food processor to make the pesto-like sauce. But this was a great recipe for my husband and me because the crunchier I can leave the veggies, the more likely it is that he will like them, and this is an especially green and crunchy dish. Yum. The tomatoes pushed it over the top to fabulous.

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Quinoa Salad with Asparagus, Lemon & Feta from The Kitchen Sink Recipes

by Sarah Fullerton

I finally made this last week after drooling over it for a week or two in my Plummelo recipe box. This was huge bang for my asparagus buck, and surprisingly low maintenance–perfect for a Sunday supper. I know I like quinoa (full of protein), I know I like asparagus, I know I like assorted cheeses, but I wasn’t sure how they’d all play together. They played very nicely! We grilled up four small dill and mustard salmon burgers I found on special in the ready-made seafood section at Whole Foods and had this asparagus salad on the side. I’d bring it to a BBQ if I’m asked to bring an accompaniment. Oh, and it was so so easy.

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More asparagus recipes

Photo by wwworks

I love it. Fat asparagus and skinny asparagus; fresh, crunchy, green asparagus; delicate white asparagus or gorgeous purple asparagus–it doesn’t matter–during the spring growing season, asparagus is a staple in this household.

One of the best things about asparagus is that it coincides with warmer weather… and warmer weather means grilling season! Using the grill to cook dinner is one of my favorite things. It’s quick, easy and requires no cleanup. So, when I can grill delicious, fresh veggies in a flash, I’m sold.

Asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables to grill. It’s firm and holds up well to the high heat. Most of the time, I simply just drizzle it with olive oil, a little sea salt and fresh ground pepper and cook it until just done (still very crunchy). If you want to jazz it up a bit, you can also whip up an easy sauce to top it off. One of my favorites is a quick sour cream sauce I make for my Grilled Purple Asparagus with Dill Sauce.

If you don’t have a grill, no worries; this recipe would work very well with sautéed or broiled asparagus as well.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to find new and interesting ideas on how to cook it. However, I even love raw asparagus. Raw you ask? Yes–raw. And no, I don’t mean on a crudités plate, served with some type of fancy-schmancy dip to mask the taste. I mean raw–as in the main ingredient of a dish.

A family favorite we tripped upon a while back is this Raw “Cream” of Asparagus Soup. This dish is especially great on summer nights when it’s just too hot to stand in front of the grill or stovetop. Plus, the taste is amazing and it’s easy and fast! The “cream” consists of raw cashews and coconut water (not milk).

Raw may sound a bit daunting at first, but I highly encourage you to give it a try. Literally, all you do is throw the ingredients into a blender and voila! To keep things simple, yet interesting, I even topped my soup with a fresh nasturtium from my garden.

Asparagus is versatile, tasty and abundant right now. It’s one of those vegetables that goes well with many things, it cooks quickly and tastes delicious both hot and cold. What more could you ask for?

In her professional life, Tammy Schuetz Cook does contract technical writing, project management, and social media in the marketing and software world. In her free time, she writes the blog Boston Food and Whine, sharing restaurant and product reviews, recipes, food photos, kid-friendly ideas, and anything and everything having to do with food. She resides in Boston with her husband, 5-year-old son, three dogs, and one cat.

There is something about the transformation of a simple cut of pork into sausages and salumis that smacks of alchemy. Our relationship with Italian delicacies like prosciutto, pancetta, and mortadella is usually limited to ordering them from the deli counter of a market or Italian specialty food store, so it’s easy to believe that this feat can only be accomplished by aging nonnas laboring away somewhere in a hill town outside of Bologna. We assume they know things about pork and charcuterie that we could never hope to, so we step to the counter and humbly order our quarter pound of sopressata like everyone else.

I never considered trying to cure pork on my own until I found myself far from the dependable supply lines of Italian food that I had become accustomed to when living in my native Boston. While staring at an overpriced, watery, shrink-wrapped hunk of pancetta in a market recently, I decided that it was time to give it a go. I wanted to make linguini carbonara—the first thing other than Trader Joe’s microwaveable burritos that I learned to cook—and I wasn’t going to make it with this unsavory looking pancetta.

Pancetta is often referred to as “Italian bacon” but the label falls short of describing its unique flavor. Unlike its American cousin, pancetta isn’t smoked, so it imparts a more subtle flavor to dishes rather than dominating them. It’s excellent not only in classic pasta sauces like carbonara and amatriciana but also with vegetables such as asparagus.

Curing your own pancetta is probably the most rewarding of all home charcuterie projects. It requires few specialized ingredients (which you can order from Butcher & Packer) and is quick to prepare. And the result is phenomenal. Your home-cured pancetta will surpass what you can get locally and will give something extra to everyday dishes.

Making pancetta does require one ingredient you’ll want to track down locally: pork belly. If you don’t have a butcher nearby, try a local Asian market, as they typically carry pork belly in their meat section. In terms of technical knowledge, all you need to learn to make pancetta is how to roll and tie the pork belly once it has been cured, something you can pick up relatively quickly from a Cook’s Illustrated tutorial. And drying the cured pancetta can be done easily using spare space in your wine fridge or a cool basement.

I won’t tell you that making your own pancetta is entirely simple or that I didn’t make a few mistakes along the way. I managed to knock the bowl of curing mix I had carefully prepared off the counter and found myself trying to fend off my two golden retrievers—intent on cleaning up for me—with one hand while trying to scoop the curing mix into a dust bin. But that’s part of home cooking. It’s never as simple as it seems on television, but the results are always worth it.