Meal Monday: Pasta and Asparagus

Welcome to 2013 and what I hope will be a weekly post here.

Last week I was having the worst time trying to find one of my recipes because my recipe book looked like this:


I decided I needed to get organized so I bought another binder, tossed a bunch of crap recipes, and typed up others that were just on scraps of paper, receipts, you name it. This was the final result. Much better, no?


In the process, I found a bunch of great recipes that I haven't made in awhile, plus some new ones. I decided that I'd start posting a recipe here every Monday. Hopefully you'll find something your family loves as much as mine.

This week we're going with a vegetarian dish - but you could easily add diced, cooked chicken to this if you wanted, or serve it on the side of a meat dish.

Pasta and Asparagus

please forgive my awful food photo taking

Ingredients:

• 1 lb asparagus
• 1 lb grape tomatoes (I didn't use that much)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• basil, fresh - approximately 15 leaves
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• 1 13 oz package of pasta
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Start a large pot of water to boil pasta.
2. Trim asparagus and cut into 1-inch pieces.
3. Halve tomatoes.
4. Julienne basil.
5. Heat oil in a large skillet on medium heat.  Add garlic and saute 2 minutes.  Add tomatoes and asparagus and cook until the asparagus is tender.
6. Meanwhile, cook pasta al dente and drain.  
7. Keeping the asparagus warm, add butter and cooked pasta.  Toss over low heat.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss in the basil.
8. Serve warm.  Sprinkle with Parmesan.  

Are there any types of recipes you'd like to see here?