Green bean or asparagus deliciousness

It is asparagus season!  Part of decreasing your carbon footprint and saving society from global warming one little bit at a time, should include trying to eat seasonal foods grown nearby.  Hey, they taste better and are more nutritional than foods that spent days in the back of a truck or on a ship before getting to your grocery store anyway!  I mean, eating watermelon in January is just plain wrong!  Take it from a girl who just ate hard, tasteless tomatoes from my local grocer for lunch.  Yuck!

Asparagus is one of the first veggies to pop up out of the ground in the spring, usually around mid-April, but depending on your latitude (sorry, Mongolia), or hemisphere (hey there, Australia!), you might have to wait a little longer before bunches of local asparagus pop up at your local farmer's market or grocery store.

We always had an asparagus patch at my parents house.  I think my grandparents are to thank for starting it, since asparagus takes a few years to really take and start producing.  My grandparents owned our orchard before we did and they did a good job of planting a little of everything (apples, cherries, bing cherries, pears, plumbs, grapes, strawberries, and asparagus).  Anyway, before dinner most nights in early spring, my mom and I would go down to the asparagus patch with a bowl and a steak knife, and cut ourselves a family-size serving of asparagus.  A few months into the season, we let the patch grow out and all of the little asparagus became trees, which I assume seeded for next year's batch.  

Last weekend, good friends came over for fajitas and we made a green bean salad to go with it.  This original recipe calls for asparagus!  Perfect!  I suggest adding carrots or green beans, but if we're sticking with the seasonal veggies, asparagus is it.

The cilantro, garlic, jalapeno dressing is killer!  Sliced, sauteed almonds top this dish.  It is craving-worthy!

You can find the recipe here at 101 cookbooks:  Carrot-Almond Salad.