Thursday, March 31, 2011

Asparagus and Poached Egg Salad

Now that Spring has officially sprung, and asparagus is $.99 a pound rather than $3.99 a pound its time to start eating it! I love asparagus! There are so many ways to eat it: blanched - which keeps it nice and crisp, roasting, steaming, or shredding raw asparagus onto a salad - its all just wonderful! With Spring also brings the heat - it was 80 degrees last night! The perfect salad-for-dinner weather. One of my favorite salads is greens/roasted veggies/poached eggs - there are a million combinations you can do. I used asparagus but get creative: mushrooms, tomatoes, and brussel sprouts are all great roasted then top your greens and you have a salad that makes a meal. This meal is light and with the poached egg you get protein and it makes a sort of dressing.


Asparagus & Poached Egg Salad

The Stuff:
1 lb Asparagus with hard ends cut off
2 egg
4 cups spinach or whatever salad green you like
4 slices bacon
1 tomato, sliced
2 tablespoon grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon olive oil - for roasting asparagus
1 tablespoon white vinegar (for poaching eggs)
dressing (see recipe below)
Dressing:
1 shallot, minced
1 tablespoon dijon mustard - the more seeds the better!
3 tablespoons olive oil, I use meyer lemon flavored, you can also just use meyer lemon juice, or regular lemon juice if you want
1 tablespoon orange champagne Vinaigrette
salt & pepper

The How To:
Preheat oven to 350, pour olive oil onto cookie sheet, lay asparagus in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 15-20 minutes
While asparagus is roasting, cook up bacon until it is crisp, pour out bacon grease. Stick bacon on paper towels to soak up grease.
Bacon!
In same pan you used for bacon, saute the shallot for 5 minutes, set aside for the dressing. Meanwhile, mix olive oil, vinaigrette, mustard, lemon juice (if using), and s&p until combined, then add shallots. This will be your dressing - set aside

In a shallow sauce pan, boil 3 cups water and vinegar. Crack 1 egg into a shallow cup, careful not to break the yolk, once water and vinegar are boiling add the egg using the cup as a vessel, repeat with 2nd egg. Do not plop it into the pan, slowly pour it in. Once, eggs are in, turn heat off but keep pan on the burner. Leave it there until ready to use

Distribute salad greens onto 2 plates, distribute sliced tomato, crumble bacon, roasted asparagus, evenly onto greens. Top with a poached egg - when removing egg use a slotted spoon to drain all the water. Be careful when scraping it off the bottom of the pan - upi don't want to crack the yolk. Top with half the dressing and half of the cheese. Crack yolk and eat up!

weight Watcher Friends: 1 salad is 6 points
Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. Sounds wonderful! I plan to try it as soon as asperagus gets cheap up here. I've really enjoyed following your blog! I hope you keep it up! Aunt Pat

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