Steamed, boiled, sauteed, roasted, fresh- I love asparagus any which way. Funny, because I had never tried it until last year. I kind of thought of it as somewhat of a delicacy as it was only in the stores during certain times of the year and most of the time it was far more expensive than I could afford. What?? $7.99 a pound? You can imagine the sheer excitement I felt when I learned that asparagus grows wild in Colorado (among other places). I was in awe for days. All fall and winter I have been waiting for asparagus season… for when the asparagus shoots out of the ground it means spring has come! For weeks, I’ve been combing the roadsides looking for the green and purple shoots with not much luck. I plucked 3 stalks a few weeks ago and was quite disappointed that there wasn’t more.

Today, however, was a different story. I strapped Connor into the stroller for a walk in the beautiful weather this morning and there were shoots EVERYWHERE! I probably picked 2 lbs of asparagus this morning- for free!

Did you know asparagus is a member of the lily family?

The word asparagus originates from the Greek language meaning “sprout” or “shoot”.

During the Renaissance age, asparagus was a dubbed an aphrodisiac and was later banned from the dining tables of most convents.

And because babies make everything cuter, here is Connor noshing on some fresh asparagus.

This kid loves his vegetables and I attribute it to the fact that his momma makes sure to eat a variety of veggies that he gets via breast-milk and also from us exposing him to vegetables from a very early age. This kid doesn’t eat any added oil, sugar or salt. When one’s taste buds haven’t acquired such a taste fruit is as good as candy and kale can be eaten by the hand-full.

Tags: "my neighborhood", Colorado, vegan

This entry was posted on Friday, May 13th, 2011 at 4:26 pm and is filed under learning my heart song, making magic in the kitchen, sharing pretties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.