Recently my two year old has decided that grilling is her favorite way to cook. She thinks of it as a free pass to play outside. Since we all need a little vitamin D, I clipped this recipe to try over the weekend. We stopped during the week and purchased all of the ingredients, except the asparagus. The grocery store we were in did not have any. Isn't that kind of strange?
I started with the dressing. I thought fresh lemon juice would be better than from a bottle. I used three half lemons and think it was close to five tablespoons. I used just under a ¼ cup of olive oil to try to keep things light. I used grated parmesan cheese from the fridge because it was available, and because I figured I could skip the blender and just mix it in a bowl, saving some cleaning. Real chefs would probably frown upon this, but sometimes you have to make your life manageable for yourself. I mixed up the dressing and set it aside. I added a little extra salt and a bunch of pepper and performed a taste test. So far so good! I began gathering the grilling items and then remembered we didn’t have any asparagus. To the grocery store we went!
As a side note, I am just like the majority of the population in that I enter the grocery store and exit with 15 items, sometimes without the item I need. To avoid this issue, we went into the grocery store and found the asparagus first, then got a basket for other items. Why I decided a fresh papaya, avocados and gummy bears were essential I cannot say but once we found the milk and the basket got heavy, we were ready to go. Not before I let my two year old hold the can of orange soda I was drinking while I carried the basket. She finished the soda by drinking/spilling it down her shirt. Fortunately, she was wearing her Halloween pumpkin shirt so you could barely see it. Yes, I am aware that it is April, but she loves that outfit and it still fits! Incidentally, orange soda mustache is hard to get off of a two year old’s face.
We returned home, put the excess groceries away and then got back down to business. We gathered all of our grilling supplies and headed outside. Two minutes later we returned to get sunglasses, tinfoil, paper towels, and cups of water. J Once I go the grill started, I put on the steak. Yes, I made the rather obvious mistake of putting the meat on before the grill was really hot. So the meat did not have the charred look of the grill, but cooked up okay. I cooked the asparagus and the artichoke hearts until the asparagus was done. I think the artichoke hearts could’ve used more charring, but it was getting late and we were hungry!
Back inside, I cut up the steak, asparagus and artichoke hearts and put them in the bowl with the cherry tomatoes. Then I removed them from the bowl, halved the tomatoes and again added the grilled items. I poured approximately half of the dressing over them and tossed with spoons. I rinsed off the arugula. I used baby arugula because that’s all that was available and really, who doesn’t love miniature everything? I will comment that four cups of arugula is a gargantuan portion. I think we’d have been fine with two cups and the same dressing. I tossed the rest of the dressing with the arugula and got out some plates, as the photo shows above. I put the grated store bought parmesan cheese on the table and we sat down to eat. As it turns out, my two year old loves arugula, as long as you coat each piece with parmesan cheese! She asked for more cheese about a dozen times and ate most of the plate. I may have had seconds! The most important lesson from this recipe though is that it is fun to watch a two year old say arugula with an orange mustache.
Now that looks delicious!
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