Steamed Asparagus

I don’t remember the first time I ate asparagus.

I am thinking it was at a picnic and someone brought some blanched asparagus and put it on a vegetable tray and I tried them.

I was in love.

Over the years I have blanched them, roasted them, wrapped bacon around and grilled them, but the simplest of all, is just to simply steam them.

Over the weekend I purchased a nice little bunch of asparagus to use as my vegetable to go with my grilled chicken. I decided to just simply steam the asparagus and show you how I do it. 

First you need to buy some aparagus of course ; )

When buying asparagus, one of the most important things to look at is the end of the stems. You want the flower part to be closed and not to be slimey. When an asparagus is getting old the stem flower will start to open and start to fall off.  Double yuck!

Also the stalk of the asparagus can be different sizes. You may find stalk about as round as a pencil or some as round as dime. The larger ones are great wrapped with bacon on the grill. It just depends on your preference and the availability as to which ones you want to buy.

The ones I purchased  were rather on the slim side.

To prepare the asparagus to be cooked you first must take off the bottom woody stalk. The best and easiest way to do this, is to just take the asparagus and snap off the end. It will break off right were the stalk end is too tough to eat. I just snapped the bottom off of these and did not even get a knife out.

I then took the asparagus and rinsed them off.

The equipment you will need, is a sauce pan, a steamer insert or basket and a lid.

    

    

    

In your sauce pan, put approximately 2 cups of water in the bottom. Add a little salt. You may wonder why. Well, because my foods teacher in college told us that water comes to boil faster if you add salt to it because the molecules have something to vibrate against. Yea, I don’t know what the means either. My teacher was scary, very smart, but scary, so I always add salt. See after all these years, I am still scared of her : ).

Bring the water to a boil, put the steamer insert in the pan, add the asparagus and cover with a lid. Steam the asparagus until it is still slightly crisp (about 4 to 5 minutes)

Take the asparagus out of the steamer insert and season it. I used roasted garlic and herb seasoning, a pat of butter and a sprinkle of salt.

Yum!

Sometimes simple is best.

These are super easy, super tasty and sure to please!

Enjoy!

Becky

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