The Accidental Asparagus: A Mom Blog Recipe

Here's what happens when your husband and younger son want meat, meat, meat for every meal, your older son is vegan and your daughter is vegetarian, verging on vegan: you get confused. You try a baked asparagus recipe when you'd really rather just blanch the asparagus and slip it into the pasta primavera you're already making .  .  . you had some idea you'd just make one dish for this meal. You were wrong! One child really, really, really, mommy, wants baked asparagus! Pleeaaassse! So okay. I've got my laptop flipped open to baked asparagus recipes, I'm thinking they sound dull, I throw in a few  tomatoes, add more olive oil. Oops! It's not olive oil! That's how the asparagus . . . accidentally . . . turned out well. Here's the recipe:

Asparagus--washed and drip-dried. Plop it into a pan on which you've theoretically rubbed a paper towel steeped in olive oil. But if you're like me, you just dump the asparagus into the pan, realize you should have poured the olive oil in first, pour it in and flip the asparagus around with a spatula to get it sort of covered. Dump in a few baby tomatoes, the salt, the pepper, the garlic salt or, if you're less lazy than me, the fresh pressed garlic. Then add a dash of what I mistakenly thought was olive oil (Just a little more!) but what turned out to be balsamic vinegar. I think I added around a tablespoonful. Sighed. Too late to get rid of it. Slid the pan into the pre-heated oven (200º C) and hoped for the best. 
Surprise! The stuff tasted great. The balsamic vinegar brought out the sweetness in the asparagus. Very tasty indeed. Accidents happen--it's just so rare that they make things better. How long did I bake it? I forget. Probably half an hour. 

P.S. I just made EXACTLY the same mistake with roast chicken. That is, having stuffed a lemon inside the bird's cavity, having set the bird, complete with salt and pepper, on top of sliced red onions, boiled carrots, boiled potatoes, garlic, I splodged on what I fondly believed was a dash of olive oil. But no. Not. I'd used balsamic vinegar again! To which I added a cuss word or two and that splodge of olive oil I'd intended. Again, perfect. There's just something about balsamic vinegar that really improves things.

Not going to try this on chocolate mousse. If only because my recipe doesn't call for olive oil.