Roasted Asparagus

The other day, Matt and I were trying to decide what to have for dinner after deciding to bail on our previous plans to go to Epcot's food and wine festival. I realized that I still needed to make something out of mommom's cookbook this week. I had some turkey sausage that needed to be cooked, so I asked Matt to find a side dish out of the cookbook. He picked out the roasted asparagus recipe. 

When I first met Matt, he hated all things vegetables. He would only tolerated broccoli. One of the first vegetables that I re-introduced him to was asparagus and he now loves and requests for it often! Needless to say, I was not surprised that this was the recipe he chose. 

In Mommom's note, she said she got this recipe from Joyce Rice and from further inquiry I found out that Joyce was my mom's Home Economics teacher in Jr. High School. Her note also said that she liked to marinate the asparagus over night or at least from the morning of until supper time. 

I make roasted asparagus (a different recipe) all the time and I'm slightly picky about it. I always want super skinny asparagus and right after washing it, the woody ends need to go. Even if you are not making it that night, you still should cut of the ends and put it in a jar with water just like you would do to any fresh flowers you bring home. I never thought of marinating it in all the goodies for longer than just the time to mix all the ingredients together. I will definitely do that from now on. I was able to marinate it for the hour or so that the main dish was being prepped and cooked since I didn't know I was making it until a few hours before dinner. I also really like that it's all mixed in a baggie. Before, I would always mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then have something else that needs to be cleaned. While Matt and I probably slightly prefer my other recipe for roasting asparagu, I did learn a few new tricks about marinating from this recipe and it provided a good alternate to what we normally have.

Roasted Asparagus 

Ingredients:
Asparagus (1lb)
Olive oil (about 2 tablespoons)
Garlic (about 1 clove minced)
Tarragon (about 1/2 teaspoon)

Directions:
Place above ingredients in baggie. Coat the asparagus well.
Place asparagus in single layer in backing dish.
Place in preheated oven 475 degrees and bake for 3 minutes. Turn the asparagus over and baked an additional 4 minutes.