Starting something new...

She Said:

Taking a page from the "Julie/Julia Project" and its inspiring and delightful movie version, "Julie and Julia", we have launched into a project to cook our way through someone else's cookbook in one year. This was a tough decision for us. Seeing as we both have truly exhausting full-time jobs, neither one of us is inspired to do a lot of hard cooking at day's end, certainly nothing approaching Julia Child's cookbook!

So we settled on a fairly easy cookbook for our daily meals (and we'll probably go with something more complex for our weekend meals) and last night was the first try. So exciting!!

We chose Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman for our weeknight meals. There are 175 recipes in this cookbook and I think we can handle that in one year. The really great part of this book is that it is a book that takes you, season-by-season, through various recipes based on what's in season at that time. We're sort of still borderline between winter and spring, but we started with a spring recipe.

Away we go!

Day One

Roasted Asparagus Vinaigrette

1 1/2 pounds asparagus (about 30 medium-thick spears), bottoms trimmed
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450℉. Lightly grease a large shallow roasting pan or half sheet pan with oil.

2. Arrange the asparagus in a single uncrowded layer in the prepared pan. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of the oil over the asparagus and roll to coat evenly.

3. Roast the asparagus for about 15 minutes, until the asparagus is lightly browned, shaking the pan occasionally for even cooking.

4. Meanwhile, combine the garlic and vinegar in a small bowl. Whisk in the remaining 3 tablespoons oil until it is fully incorporated. Season to taste with the salt and pepper.

5. When the asparagus is done, transfer to a serving platter. Drizzle with the vinaigrette. Sprinkle with additional salt and pepper, if desired. Set aside for at least 30 minutes to blend the flavors.

6. Serve at room temperature.

Our goal is to follow these recipes exactly and not put our own spin on them, like we normally do. Thank goodness we did stick to the real recipe. This was really, really delicious and addictive. We used pencil-thin asparagus which really should have cooked for less time but it was still fab.

Trying to use up everything on hand that is not a recipe ingredient, we served this with two almond-crusted flounder filets that we had in the freezer and prepared a box of Whole Grain Roasted Garlic Italiano Rice-a-Roni. It's not a meal that tasted like something we normally make but that's OK. We're trying to get out of our rut!

I can't wait for tonight's dinner!

Day 1/365:Recipe 1/175