Tormented Kitchen

First of all, I was totally expecting to have a fantastic amount of good stuff to show off here. And then Things Didn't Go Well. It's not like a cut myself, but I had some big Uh-Oh's in the cooking process of my great Thai-themed dinner.  I had planned chicken satay, Lahp Moo (pork wraps), with peanut dip and jasmine rice. The only things that turned out right were the dip and the rice. Let me recount what went wrong. I was all over town because 1. Daughter went to preschool. 2. Son and I got breakfast then shopped for birthday party paraphernalia. 3. Took son to Dentist appointment. For a filling!  4. Lunch with hubby and goofy son (thank you nitrous gas) at evil Golden Arches Restaurant. (Please don't say the actual name! I'm so tired of the kids begging for pancakes and cheeseburgers!) 5.Shopped for food, including going to two different grocery stores because I forgot things the first time. Then we got home and I tried to cook. I overdid it with red curry

The other day I felt like making asparagus for dinner. I didn't want just regular steamed (or nuked) asparagus with butter. So I grabbed a roasting pan, turned the oven on, and tossed a few things together. I really like when things are easy and they are tasty. Just a note, for the kiddos, I can cut the spears into bite-size pieces.  If you want to start with smaller pieces for the whole batch, go ahead and chop them to size before roasting. Just for fun, I served this on my corn-cob plates.  You know, those long, narrow, sculpted porcelain plates that look like corn, designed to hold one cooked ear of corn-on-the-cob? Mine have been gathering dust all winter. (Since there was no corn on the cob to use them with, I got creative.) I think you can find them at Williams Sonoma in the summer. They are one of those cute, seasonal things that you may have to wait until corn season to find. Ingredients 1 bunch thin asparagus, about 1 lb. 2 Tablespoons olive oil 2 Tablespoons fre