Char-Grilled Asparagus with Warm Bread Salad

Late last December I started keeping a log of recipes we’d either tried or made again along with a list of recipes to try.  By now in September we’re up to about 145 recipes.   Ninety-six of them are new.  That’s an average of ten new recipes a month.  You can tell when the wheels came off since I went from 15 in January and 21 in February down to 10 in March and less than 10 a month during April through August.  We stuck to a lot of old favorites those months!  Comfort food was what we needed.  Now, it’s time to once again try some new dishes.  Month-to-date in September we’ve made 15 new recipes.  Our average score on a scale of 1-5 is 4.3125.  That’s just slightly below February’s 4.286 and slightly above January’s 4.267.  The bottom line is that we tend to like most of the new recipes we try.  I’ve still got about 50 new recipes to try with half a dozen cookbooks to be added to the mix.  Yes, I LOVE statistics.  My brain thinks in Excel…  One of the reasons I love cooking so much is that it uses a different part of my brain.  So it’s relaxing after a long day of work. 

Tonight the menu was mahi-mahi with a mango cilantro chutney.  Took the mango chunks out of the freezer and let’s just say fruit doesn’t last much past it’s expiration date in the freezer.  Mango chunks in particular.  So I grabbed one of the tomatoes Connie had picked up for Wednesday’s tomato salad with pecan basil pesto.  BLT’s!  Along side I was thinking something with potatoes or cauliflower but the asparagus with warm bread salad from Flavoring With Olive Oil really caught my eye.  We didn’t have the sourdough bread the recipe called for but I was happy to substitute what we had.  Typically I buy the thinner asparagus spears but this bunch came from Imperfect so I didn’t have a choice. 

What did we think?  Absolutely a recipe we’ll make again.  And this is a great winter recipe too.  We’ve found from previous recipes tried in this cookbook that the quantity of olive oil used is immense.  I’ve noted what we actually used…

Char-Grilled Asparagus with Warm Bread Salad

Ingredients:

1 bunch asparagus, the thicker the better

1 T olive oil

1 slice whole grain bread

½ T white wine vinegar

1 T olive oil

Sprinkle of garlic powder

1 hard cooked egg, peeled and chopped

2 t capers

1 large sprig flat leaf parsley, chopped

Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

White wine vinegar for drizzling

 

Directions

Cube the bread and put it in a bowl.  Drizzle in the 1/2 T of vinegar and toss it well.  Heat the 1 T of olive oil in a small skillet.  When it’s shimmering add the bread cubes  and sprinkle them with garlic powder.  Saute until the bread cubes are well browned.  

While all of that is going on, heat a grill pan and coat it with olive oil.  You’re going to want to cook your asparagus until it’s blistered on all sides.

Put the cooked asparagus on plates.  Top with chopped egg, capers and the bread cubes.  Drizzle with white wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil