spring Archives - Mamma's Cooking

Side dishes are often my favorite part of the meal. They enhance the main course. They can be warm and comforting or light and refreshing. They can be vegetarian, vegan and gluten free or full of butter, bacon and cheese, still gluten free 🙂 Side dishes give you an opportunity to use seasonal vegetables to make your meal amazing, butternut squash in the fall or asparagus in the spring.

Last winter we moved into a new house and were very excited for spring to see what was going to grow. We were not expecting asparagus, but one day the kids were playing out back and discovered stalks of asparagus growing out of the ground! We learned that asparagus is difficult to grow. It takes years to establish a patch of asparagus. We are very lucky that the previous owner had a green thumb! Here is a simple roasted asparagus recipe that would be a great addition to your holiday table.

Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients

About 1 pound of fresh asparagus, trimmed

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

¾ of a teaspoon salt

1/8 of a teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss all the ingredients together on a sheet pan. Spread asparagus out and roast for about 10 minutes. Take the pan out of the oven and transfer asparagus to a serving platter.

This is such a great, simple recipe that you can prep in the morning and put in the oven just before serving. Similarly you can do this with Green Beans.

I’m going to serve this asparagus dish at Easter with a version of my Twice Baked Potatoes. If you are looking for a decadent side dish try this Sweet Potato Gratin or easy Polenta. However, if you have time, try making Potato Gnocchi or Quinoa Risotto to wow your guests.

You can make your holiday meals as simple or involved as you like. I have learned over the years, for me, I try to keep it simple on the holidays, make things I can prep ahead of time that don’t involve a lot of hands on work the day of. For example, if I am serving mashed potatoes, I make it in the morning or day before and then put into the crock pot to keep warm or reheat. For us it is easier to make everything rather than worry about cross-contamination if someone brings something with gluten in it. How do you handle the holidays with food allergies or Celiac disease?

Spring is in the air and we have been spending as much time as possible outside trying to enjoy it! (Sorry to those in Seattle who are dealing with snow!) While we are enjoying the outdoors, I let my slow cooker do the cooking and use some go to items for quick meals that can be made at the last minute.

I have been trying to find a delicious easy way to make polenta from scratch. I’ve bought the premade tubes and mashed them up with milk and butter, bought the quick cooking polenta, which are both good, but not as good as using corn meal and mixing it by hand for a long time. Today I had an epiphany — make it in the slow cooker! So I did. I just googled slow cooker and polenta and found this recipe. It worked great and was delicious!! I served it with some sausages and leftover roasted butternut squash. I had promised Karina she could have carrots and cottage cheese too before I remembered about the leftover squash, so she got both! and ate both! Win win 🙂

I took a couple of ladles full of the hot polenta and put it in a small square tupperware dish in the fridge to cool for about 15 minutes while I grilled the sausage and microwaved the squash. when the polenta was cool, I cut a Mickey Mouse shape out with a cookie cutter.

The boys didn’t eat too much tonight, a little overtired from all the outdoor fun, but they usually like it 🙂

Last night I made perogies, peas and shrimp, which only took about 10 minutes! This was a hit with 4 out of 5 of us. Neil didn’t eat much other than the peas 🙂 I try to keep frozen perogies and peas in the freezer, along with something like shrimp that can easily be thawed. I cooked the shrimp in a little olive oil and then once they were pink on a sides, added 1 clove minced garlic and some leftover honey mustard lemon vinaigrette. [Honey mustard lemon vinaigrette – olive oil, lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, lemon pepper and sugar. I tossed a spinach salad with it over the weekend]

Coming up…cooking bucket lists and I’ve been doing some research on local CSAs and farmer’s markets!