Asparagus, Brown Rice Pasta, Scallions and Tazekie Sauce (Gluten Free)

It is asparagus season and every good salad needs some green onions. I found some Brown rice pasta spirals that work well with the veggies. The whole grain rice pasta is gluten free.

Here is the recipe...

Asparagus. Wilted Spinach, Scallion and Black Bean Pasta (gluten Free)

The vegetables in the title of this post sounds like our market menu for this week. It is very nice to have a medley of vegetables that we can use in the kitchen once again.

This dish is heavy on the veggies and uses the black bean pasta to add interest. The pasta and vegetables are gluten free.

I boiled the pasta per instructions, added the asparagus and scallions to the boiling water about half way through. After straining the pasta and veggie mixture to drain off the water. I added the hot mix to the spinach and let it wilt down a bit.

Here is the recipe....

Cilantro Recipes - Roasted Salmon, Lime and Cilantro, with Asparagus

This week is our first cilantro harvest and we are sharing some of our favorite cilantro recipes. We will have fresh cilantro and abundant cilantro plants for those who want to grow their own.

Ingredients:

-Salmon Fillets (6-8 onces each)
- Sea salt and fresh ground tellichery pepper (just ground pepper will do). We get our pepper corns   from Penzy's in Minneapolis (check them out).
- 1/4 cup lime juice, or 1 tablespoon concentrate
- 2 table spoons soy sauce (low salt in desired)
- 8 drops stevian (herb plants available at Petersen's) or 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons chopped baby cilantro leaves (Petersen's all season)
- 1-2 bunches of Asparagus (Petersen's in season)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Arrange salmon fillets in a shallow pan or wrap in tin foil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast 15 minutes or until no longer pink in the middle and the salmon is flaky.

Whisk together the lime juice, soy sauce, and sweetner. Fold in the cilantro leaves. Spoon over fish and serve with asparagus.

You can substitute a white fish if you'd rather or we really like steele head trout when in season.

Wonderful Asparagus

Asparagus well grown is some of the most tender and succulent of the vegetables. It provides a welcome retreat from the long winter and is one of the first vegetable to be ready for harvest. It is a perennial and starts growing when the soil reaches 60 degrees.

We snap the spears off when they reach the appropriate size. By snapping the spears you only get the most tender parts of the plant (Picture shown on the left). Asparagus that is too big is very woody and almost worthless (Picture shown on the right)

We use highly mineralized salt and kelp to fertilize the plants and the flavor is wonderful.

Asparagus is a very long lived perennial and can live 15 years before needing to be displaced.