Lemon Garlic Asparagross Pasta

The recipe I picked for this assignment was lemon garlic asparagus pasta; a recipe I came across on budget bytes.(https://www.budgetbytes.com/lemon-garlic-asparagus-pasta/) It appealed to me after I tried past meals that contained lemon and garlic as ingredients. The asparagus was also a healthy plus which was a win win towards me. I hoped it tasted similar to my personal favorite, lemon chicken farfalla which my father rarely made. Another reason for this decision was that I also lacked ingredients, had only frozen chicken and not enough gas to run to HEB. As I replaced the chicken with asparagus, this created a new experience different from the lemon chicken farfalla. The preparation wasn't entirely new since I had only frozen asparagus instead of refrigerated. I was also intimidated about the different heating instructions that I followed for the asparagus as I had instructions from the blog and the frozen asparagus's bag




The cooking process involved that I boiled the pasta and simmered the asparagus for about eight minutes each. As always, I used a pot for the pasta and a skillet for the asparagus. For asparagus, I first followed the instructions on the bag since it acknowledged that the asparagus was frozen. I was confused on which instructions to follow on the amount of water to add. The convenient side of frozen asparagus was that it was already chopped; although it would have been a thrill if I chopped them myself. As I simmered the asparagus, I was unsure when the asparagus looked once its bright green. This would help in the same way as cookies would smell which indicated that they are ready. Due to the confusion over the asparagus, I also failed to pay attention on the pasta as it boiled over.

Panicked, I lifted the pot until the white bubbles came back down before I sat it back down. Once the eight minutes passed, I drained the pasta and returned it in the pot. I then added butter to prevent clumps in the pasta before I drained the asparagus next. Once I returned the asparagus into the skillet, I followed the instructions on the blog which had me mixed with garlic and butter. It was difficult to know when the garlic was as “gold” as pony boy so I just decided it finished after two minutes passed. Finally, I added salt and pepper into the green then simply added the pasta and splashed some lemon juice.

The appearance of the finished product was obviously different from the blog’s. The asparagus appeared to be mushy and soggy from the abundance of water. The noodles looked as usual as before and the dish smelled decent enough to match its taste. My stepmother even walked by and said that the food smelled good, which gave me confirmation that I was on the right track. Yet once tried, I was immediately disgusted by its foul taste. What went wrong? Too much asparagus? Not enough salt or lemon? I added more salt and lemon but just gave up and threw the rest away.

I decided that the asparagus was undercooked since I added too much water and thus not allowed it to cook properly. Since the asparagus was frozen, it should only make sense that less water was needed because of the frozen water on the asparagus. I doubted the garlic and butter tainted the taste since they would've been obvious culprits. Therefore, I was utterly disappointed from when before, I felt accomplished and even yelled “bam”, as Emeril had. I will not try this recipe again and plan to stick to tomato sauce until my confidence returns.