After blogging about the benefits of fruits and veggies, I went for a mega grocery shopping and I blindly took almost all the fruits and veggies that were in the store. When I was ready to check out, my shopping cart was stacked up with all healthy stuffs. I occasionally sneaked into others cart, and what I saw was all frozen and unhealthy stuffs heaped up. Looking at my cart, I felt way too healthy and gratified. After that shopping, I was surprised to see that I actually had ignored many fruits and veggies. For instance, Kale was one such veggie I never haven’t cared to buy. It was when I started to arrange all the healthies in my refrigerator that I realized; I actually needed one more refrigerator to keep all of them. Somehow I forced everything into the refrigerator and with a deep breath out, I stood still with the fridge open for a while and thought about all the healthy dishes I would be making with them.

Now, I make sure to include veggies in my daily diet. The best part is we don’t have to make a real fancy dish with the veggies to get its benefits, by really easy cooking methods we can include these in our daily diet and benefit out of them. One such cooking method is baking the veggies; only thing we have to do is season the veggies, which would take less than a minute. And then pop it in the oven and the rest of the cooking the oven would do, we don’t have to stand aside to stir it or sauté it.

It’s been only 4 years since I have included asparagus in my diet. I have never seen or heard about this when I was in Kerala, because it wasn’t available there, I am not sure whether it is available now though. When I first saw this veggie, I was so curious to taste this veggie. After tasting this veggie in a restaurant, this has become an unavoidable veggie for me. I always roast them in the oven, soup them and use them in stir-fry.

If you haven’t tried this veggie, you must definitely try this, it is really healthy and tasty. Check my “say YES to fruits and veggies” blog post to know more about its health benefits.

Roasting the asparagus in the oven is the easiest dish you could make out of these. This would make a healthy snack or a side dish.

Ingredients:

• Asparagus- 1 pound
• Garlic, cut thin long- 3 cloves
• Pepper powder- 1/2 tsp
• Salt- to taste
• Olive oil- 1tsbp

Preparation:

• Season the asparagus with the above ingredients,  toss them and spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
• Preheat the oven to 425F.
• Bake it in the oven for 20 minutes.

For Seasoning after the baking:

Ingredients:

• Lemon zest- 1/2 tsp ( grate the skin of the lemon using a veggie grater)
• Parmesan cheese, freshly grated or frozen- 2 -3 tbsp
• Basil leaves chopped-4-5 leaves
• Toasted Almond slices- 2tbsp ( you could toast the almonds in a pan until it gets golden brown)
• Olive oil-1 tsp
• Lemon juice-1tsp

Method:

• Combine lemon zest, Parmesan cheese and chopped basil leaves together and keep it aside.
• As soon as the asparagus is taken out of the oven, sprinkle the above mix on to them.
• Drizzle it with olive oil, lemon juice and put the toasted almonds on it.
• Serve immediately when it is still hot.

Tips:

• Make sure to sprinkle the cheese mix as soon as the asparagus comes out of the oven, this would help to melt the cheese and enhance the flavor.
• You could also skip the cheese, if you are going too healthy.