The Perfect Italian Dinner

...with a little dab of Asian inspiration, of course ;)

In this post, you will find: Garlic Bread, Asparagus, and Lasagna.

GARLIC BREAD

Delicious! This recipe I adapted from some trial-and-error cooking at the nice dinner party I had a few weeks ago. I added a few dashes of basil this time and I think the taste matches very well. :)

Ingredients:

• bread of your choice (I used French bread but after this experience I'd recommend going for something softer)
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
  
• few dashes basil, or one fresh basil leaf
  

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F
   
2. Melt butter in microwave or over stove.
3. Add minced garlic and basil to butter
4. Spread butter-garlic mix onto sliced bread to your liking
   
5. Bake for 10 min or until bread is crispy
   

ASPARAGUS

Ingredients:

• bundle of asparagus
• kosher salt
• rice vinegar or balsamic vinegar
  
• soy sauce

Directions:

1. Boil asparagus ~5 minutes in boiling water (or until ready) [I don't know how long since I made the mistake of over-boiling mine... stupid electric stoves]
2. Drizzle soy sauce and rice vinegar (has not regular vinegar) at about a 60:40 ratio, or to your liking.
3. Sprinkle kosher salt to taste

This one was a really fun one; it's simple, light & delicious, and visually very appealing. From the ideas of other recipes and The Food Network (I really should give more credit to them for what I know!), I kind of made this one up on the fly. I chose soy sauce and rice vinegar to provide strong flavor, yet lightness to the asparagus--exactly what you want a vegetable to do to balance a carb-heavy or meat-heavy meal!

Explanation to my deliberate choice of kosher salt over sea salt and table (regular) salt: Table salt will likely dissolve and it's harder to see/less visually appealing. Generally speaking, table salt is used while cooking and not thrown on afterward as a garnish. Kosher salt worked best for the presentation because it offers large, flaky pieces of salt. Sea salt is the one I haven't quite figured out yet... in appearance it looks like large crystalline rocks, probably similar to a blown-up version of table salt. I believe (and I may be wrong here) that choosing kosher over sea salt really depends on how you want your dish to look; some dishes will be better with flakes and some will look better with a rocky-looking salt. Although all probably taste about the same, you'll get less concentration of salt in a pinch of kosher or sea salt versus a pinch of table salt. Also, based on the chef's vision, the presentation is probably the key to the decide which salt is used.

LASAGNA

I have to note that this is not the freshest picture--it's a microwaved piece of leftover lasagna, but it's the only photo I've got. =/

This recipe is adapted from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Worlds-Best-Lasagna/Detail.aspx. I liked this recipe so much that this is the second time I'm making it. I did make a few changes though:

Ingredient differences:

• swapped the sweet Italian sausage for 1 package of Adelle's Chicken and Portobello Mushroom Sausages, chopped into bits
• added 1 tray of white button mushrooms (whatever size in those blue containers they sell at Safeway), sliced
• did not add garlic
• tomato sauce was flavored with basil
• no basil leaves (cost effective when you buy the above instead, haha)
• no parsley
  
• added slightly more beef and ricotta cheese than called for

I liked it a lot more this time when I swapped some ingredients. :D
Notes I made: Do not add too many fennel seeds. Next time will probably expand use of mushrooms to include portobello mushrooms, and will add garlic. For the future I will also try to use as many fresh ingredients as possible, including upgrading to real tomatoes and chucking that canned stuff!