"Better than a Cobb" Shallot and Asparagus Steak Salad

I started to get a lot of hits off of the term, "Asparagus Salad". I should qualify that statement. I started to get a lot of hits for an asparagus blog off the term Asparagus Salad. If you Yahoo! search Asparagus Salad my asparagus salad comes up in the pictures. My blog isn't mentioned. It's just the picture. It's a great picture done by a lovely photographer that does a lot of pro bono work for me out of pity. I don't really know who even uses Yahoo! as a search engine. Does Alta Vista sometimes get too bogged down with traffic? Having seen that and wanting to respond to a vague sense of what my audience (I use this term really loosely) would want, I set out to make the best asparagus salad I could. This is what I came up with, and honestly I think it's better than a Cobb.

Here's the long name:

Steak salad with blanched asparagus, grilled shallots, avocado, cherry tomato, crumbled blue cheese, and a fried egg.

Or for short: S.S.B.A.G.S.A.C.T.C.B.C.F.E. (This is how you will affectionately order it at Chili's when they buy the recipe from me)

Ingredients:

Mixed greens

Blanched asparagus

1 grilled shallot

Crumbled blue cheese

1/2 of an avocado

Cherry tomatoes

Grilled steak

1/3 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons of Grey Poupon

Red wine vinegar to taste

Salt

Pepper

1 fried egg per serving

Instructions:

I've previously talked about blanching asparagus, and I more recently talked about grilling steak. For the salad dressing in this all you need to do is put 1/3 of a cup of olive oil in a small bowl. Add your mustard and your red wine vinegar. Whisk it all until the mustard makes it emulsify. Add salt, pepper, and additional oil, mustard, or vinegar to taste. It's a fickle process and you're going to have to do taste tests until it's to your liking. I had most of my salad assembled as I was grilling my steak. When I say assembled what I mean is I just took the ingredients and I put them on a plate. What's nice about this recipe is that timing isn't a factor. A lot of the stressful element of cooking is derived from trying to cook several different things that cook at different rates and having them all ready at the same time. Friend, this is a salad. There's no need for any of that. When the steak is done let it rest and cool. I had everything sliced, chopped and plated and then I just fried an egg with ease for the final garnish. It made a hearty dinner that was easy and delicious.

Roasted Asparagus and shallot soup w/ Avacado

This is a new soup I tried. I couldn't sleep the other night so I did what everyone does in this situation: midnight asparagus Google searches. I found a recipe that sounded promising but I felt it needed some changes. The soup turned out really good but just like everything else that's worthwhile in this life it left me with more questions than answers. This soup is served hot with roasted asparagus and shallots.  It's made me curious about trying an asparagus gazpacho though. However, not wanting to be gauche I will have to wait until the Summer to attempt something like that. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I love avocado. When I cut into a fresh avocado it fills me with hope. Something as piquant as avocado is proof that there's a divine force in the universe. That I'm not alone. If something this delicious can exist it has to be an indication that there's something more than me. My trite existence is one small piece of some larger scheme. Nothing this beautiful can be created purely by chance or serendipity. Sometimes though when I cut into one and I see it's brown and rotted, a rush of doubt enters my mind. I'm reminded that I'm all alone in an indifferent universe that's cold and bleak. And Serendipity is just a shitty John Cusack movie, not the driving force behind existence.

 Ingredients:

1 bundle of Asparagus

1 clove of garlic

1/4 cup of olive oil

1 shallot

2 avocados

1 clove of garlic

Salt/Pepper

2 cups of chicken

1/2 lemon, juiced

                                                                                    1 teaspoon of bacon grease

Instructions:

Heat your oven to 425 degrees. Put your roasting pan in the oven to heat it. Cut (or snap) the ends off your asparagus, slice your shallots and your garlic. When the pan is hot and your oven is warmed take the pan out and lay the asparagus across the pan with the shallots and garlic. Roast them for 12-14 minutes. While this is happening take out your food processor and add everything else to it. The chicken stock, the avocados the salt and pepper the bacon grease and the lemon juice. When the asparagus is done roasting add those to the food processor and puree. Don't puree the stuff that's going to end up garnishes. Leave a few spears of asparagus and some slices of avocado and shallots out. Serve quickly in bowls and enjoy! Garnish how you see appropriate.

No Shallots or Asparagus

Every meal I cook or eat doesn't involve shallots and asparagus. There are some things that I've cooked that don't have either ingredient. Inherently these meals are less likely to flatter your palate but despite their shortcomings some of them actually are delicious. This post is about them, the honorable recipes that didn't involve the two most delicious ingredients. In a way they're respectable because they're coming from an adverse background of disadvantage.

Roasted Brussel Spouts w/ Prosciutto, Prawns wrapped in bacon, roasted tomatoes and red potatoes and a New York Steak

Green Enchiladas with beer braised chicken

Instead of putting red bell pepper in my lasagna, I put my lasagna in red bell peppers. They're spicy Italian sausage lasagna with arugula in a red bell pepper.

Red Enchiladas w/ strips of carne asada and cilantro