Asparagus, Eggs, Peeps and Chocolate? Not as gross a combo as it sounds!

( Source #1,  Source #2, Source #3, Source #4)

Last night after work I went shopping at Gap with some gals and was quite successful!  Being the smart lady that I am I changed directly into my gym clothes in the Gap changing room so I had NO excuse not to make my way to the treadmill!

On my walk to the gym, Lisa gave me the best surprise ever!  A chocolate covered peep!!  Pretty much when it comes to melting, dipping, and refrigerating chocolate, Lisa is your girl.  I could not have been more excited since peeps are one of my favs by themselves.  The idea of having them dipped in the amazing chocolate that Lisa used for her delicious Lisa's Easter Chocolates was exciting enough that I almost devoured it right there on the street corner.

Luckily I showed willpower and trekked my butt (its 3 blocks, trek is an over statement) to the gym, got in a quick work out and then headed home to make some dinner. 

This isn't really a baking post although I will tell you how to make Lisa's amazing treats later so it definitely counts.  Before I get to that though, I just have to tell you about my dinner.  

While making a special treat for SOMEONE (s) birthday that's coming up I finally made this dish that I spotted on Gina's blog ages ago and was reminded of recently in the Power Foods cookbook (everyone should get this book it has great ideas and general nutritional information!).  

When I first saw the idea of combining Asparagus and Eggs on Gina's blog, I have to admit, I was pretty grossed out. I love asparagus. I love eggs.  The two together just did not make sense to me, except maybe in an egg white omelet. Never the less, I had one egg left and the carton was taking up a lot of room in the fridge so what the heck, I gave it a try.

I changed this up a smidge but this dish was UNREAL. 

Ingredients: 

10 asparagus spears (I used pre-cooked frozen spears from Trader Joes)

1 large eggs

2 tablespoons onions

1 tablespoon Feta cheese

Salt to taste

These steps are really easy. 

Steps:

1) Pam a large frying pan and place onions to saute on one end.

2) Place asparagus spears in a microwave safe bowl and microwave 

3) In the same pan as the onions (on the other part) cook an egg (over easy)

4) Remove Asparagus from Microwave and top with cooked onions and then cooked egg

5) Sprinkle Feta

6) Enjoy!

And if you are luck and have stellar friends like this girl, you get to have THIS for dessert:

Lisa said this is how you make this:

1) Melt chocolates (same chocolates as for Lisa's Easter Chocolates)

2) Stick a stick in the bottom of a peep

3) Cover with chocolate and sprinkles

4) Refrigerate

5) Be amazing and wrap them cutely for your friends

This combo was the best ever.  Now just wait until Sunday to see what delicious bday surprise was made!

Asparagus Prosciutto Pizza

 **Not baking but too delicious not to share**

Last night we had a small shin-dig at my APT with some girlies.  Jvo and I have been planning to have a delish dinner date ever since our extravagant brunch at Friends of a Farmer a couple of weeks back.  She is currently is on an asparagus kick, and anything involving pizza always works for me so we tackled this Asparagus Pizza Recipe with a few slight changes.

We adventured down to Trader Joe's (my main complaint about this city is that there aren't enough Trader Joes'). Grabbed some goodies and headed back to the APT to devour. 20 min later and 17 blocks, we were starving.

The recipe that we used was a little indulgent but definitely worth the splurge! We kinda of winged everything, one of the nice things about cooking is that you can mainly just go with the flow and it will still come out well :)

Ingredients (roughly)

1oz Prosciutto (roughly one package)

Olive oil, for drizzling

1 whole wheat Trader Joe's Pizza dough

1 1/4 cups grated Monterey jack

1 giant block of Fresh Mozzarella (we went with a sort of spicy olive oil marinated block)

6 asparagus stalks

1/2 a sweet onion

2 tablespoons minced garlic

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

10 basil leaves, finely chopped

 The steps to this were very simple and perfect to do with a friend!  Jvo and I split things up and it worked out perfectly!

1) Spread dough over a pam-ed baking sheet and dust with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper

2) Cut onion and saute with olive oil until cooked well but not overly brown

3) place the olive oiled dough into the oven to toast lightly while you...

4) Cut asparagus into small 3 inc pieces

5) Cut mozzarella chunk into small quarter size pieces

6) Pull prosciutto into long thin pieces

7) Chop basil into small crisp pieces

8) Remove dough from the oven and sprinkle garlic evenly throughout

9) Sprinkle Monterey Jack cheese evenly over dough

10) Add asparagus evenly

11) Add Mozzarella evenly

12) Add Prosciutto evenly

13) Top with basil!

 (deliciousness before we threw it in the oven!)

14) Put in over for 20 to 35 minutes until edges start to brown.

15) Dig in!

This recipe made PLENTY of food.  Four starving girls (roommate and roommate's fred were stuffed and there was enough for Jvo to take home for lunch today. Perfect.

What better way to end a scrumptious salty meal then with a delicious sweet treat! We dominated my PB&J Bars and then all were comfortably stuffed until about... right now.