I'm rockin Robin and in today's episode I'm going to show you how to make roasted asparagus now this is a super easy recipe and it is really delicious because of the roasting process brings out the sugars when we caramelize them in the vegetables so it is fantastic and I'm pretty sure that once you try this that you're never going to go back to microwaving or steaming your asparagus again so let's go ahead and go over ingredients we have just a few here we have asparagus now I've got about 3/4 of a pound you can make as much as you want obviously we'll need I'm going to be putting a little bit of Parmesan cheese on top at the end and we'll need some olive oil and salt and pepper and that's it so before we start I want to talk just a little bit about asparagus so when you go over to the store and pick these out or preferably maybe even the farmers market you're going to want to look for asparagus that are nice and firm so they're firm all the way through the stem and they're pretty much uniform in color and the very tip is nice and compact and closed you know how sometimes that that intends to open up that means they're just not as fresh so that's what you look for then when you bring them home if you're not going to use them say the same day and you really should use them pretty quick if you want to storm for a day you've got a couple of options one is you're going to want to clip off maybe just a half an inch of each piece each asparagus stock and you can fill this jar any jar glass whatever you have with about an inch of water stick them in upright cover it with a plastic bag and put it your refrigerator the second option if you don't have that kind of room is to trim off the ends half an inch wrap the ends with a damp paper towel and then place it in a plastic bag and put it in your refrigerator the thing you want to remember is to use it within a day or two so when we're ready to cook our asparagus go ahead and rinse them all don't rinse them when you first bring them home but rinse them right before you're going to cook them rinse them all and then Pat them dry with a paper towel we want to have them dry so that they don't steam in the oven when we're roasting them so now that I've done that already mine are dry now we need to talk about trimming them now you've got a part of your asparagus that's a little bit tough and it's usually at the very end and the best way to figure that out is just to go ahead and snap it and it will break where the tender part starts okay you can use that as a guide and then just trim all the rest or you can do each one individually that's up to you I'm going to go ahead and trim the rest based on that one piece okay so you take your spare guess just do a bunch at a time and you know here's my guide so I'm just going to go ahead and trim them just like that all right so now what I like to do is use a ziploc bag I'm going to go ahead and place my asparagus in the bag and I'm going to add about oh I don't know just enough oil to coat them all now I put in the bag it just makes it easier to to coat it so I'm probably going to add like a teaspoon or so maybe two teaspoons of oil zip it up and then I'm just going to massage the bag I actually got a little too much air in there let some of your out and you're just going to coat it just like this I'm tossing and turning and I want all of the asparagus to get coated in oil once that's done which it looks like I've got it coated pretty good I have over here I have a baking sheet lined with parchment paper you can also use foil if you want to so take your asparagus out of the bag and just pour them on to your sheet and if you have a little extra oil you can pour it on now what we're going to do is we want to spread these out so that they have plenty of room between them again so they don't steam and they just roast nicely they have room to roast okay so now all you have to do is grab your salt and just sprinkle a little bit of salt all over and do a little pepper if you like and we're ready to roast in the oven now what we want to do is to roast I have my oven preheated to 425 degrees now being that my asparagus are very thin it's probably only going to take about 10 minutes to roast them if your asparagus is bigger thicker then it may take 15 minutes so that's all up to you the way you tell is you know you stick a fork into it and it's tender you don't want it to be limp just nice and tender I'm going to go ahead and put this in okay ten minutes and I just pull these out of the oven and you can see here they look really well they look good you know when you stick a fork in dough and they're definitely tender I wouldn't want to go any longer than this for this size of asparagus so I'm going to go ahead and place them on my plate what I like to do is add just a little bit of fresh lemon juice on this so really it gives it a nice little bright flavor but it doesn't overpower the asparagus so I'm just going to sprinkle a little bit right on top and the other thing I like to add and you don't have to you can do anything you want with asparagus here as far as flavorings you can stay to keep it as simple as just olive oil salt and pepper and that's really all you need to do but I'd like to change it up every once in a while you can take a little bit of Parmesan cheese and sprinkle it on top just like that and there you have it simple easy fast and super delicious I'm going to go ahead and take a taste mmm that is so delicious right and it's got just a little bit of crunch to it you don't want overcook it you don't want it to be mushy fantastic give this a try you're going to love how simple fast and easy it is and the flavor that caramelizing of the sugars brings out a great great flavor in your asparagus so thanks for watching be sure and subscribe to my channel click that button up there wherever it is down there and leave me a comment I'd love to hear from you and head on over to my website at cooking Mexican recipes calm and I have a free newsletter there for you to try and we'll see you next time thanks for watching