Yummy recipe

I enjoy cooking and, if I do say so myself, I am pretty good at it. One of my talents is making up new recipes on the spot with whatever I happen to have lying around. I recently made a dish that came out extra good so I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else would like to try. Since I just kind of threw it together, I don't have a lot of exact measurements so I can only say to add stuff to your taste...here goes!

1 pound of ground beef (I used local grass fed)

6 tablespoons of butter (this needs to be exact)

6 tablespoons of flour (this needs to be exact)

3 cups of milk (this needs to be exact)

1 bunch of asparagus

1 onion chopped

Extra virgin olive oil

Spices - I used pepper, basil and thyme

1 pound of pasta - I used whole grain wheat

Mixture of cheeses - I used American, provolone, raw milk Cheddar and raw milk farmhouse jack. Basically just what I had in my cheese drawer.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Set a pan of salted water to boil.

In a frying pan, heat up a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Once it is hot, throw the onion in and saute until soft. Try not to let them get burned.

By now, water should be boiling, add pasta and cook according to package directions.

Once the onion is soft, take it out and put the ground beef in the pan. Brown that and then drain out any fat. Add the onion back in and the spices. Also add the asparagus. Lower the heat and cover so that everything simmers together.

In a sauce pan, melt the butter over low heat. Once the butter is melted add the flour and whisk together constantly. Do not let this mixture sit because it burns and clumps very fast. (This is called making a roux - it is the base for many sauces and gravies. My Dad taught me how to do this. The proportions that we have always used is two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of flour to one cup of liquid.) Once the butter and flour are well mixed, slowly add the milk, whisking the whole time. This mixture will eventually thicken up into a nice sauce. As long as you can keep whisking the whole time, you can go ahead and put the heat to medium so it doesn't take as long. While whisking, add in your cheese. I'd say I probably used around 2 - 2.5 cups of cheese but I'm not sure. I just tossed cheese in until I thought I had a nice mix of flavors and a good ratio of cheese to milk so that it would get thick and cheesy but not too thick. Once the cheese is melted and the sauce is thick and creamy - turn off the heat and remove the pan from the heat. Keep whisking just a bit longer to make sure no burning or clumping takes place.

In a 9 x 13 baking dish, mix all the stuff together. Pop it in the oven and let cook for around 15 minutes. The baking time is just to kind of let it all settle in together. I timed it by taking it out when my husband got home so you can experiment with different cooking times if you want. Maybe even add some kind of bread crumb topping? I was too lazy for that.

Anyway - that's it. I hope you like it! I'm sorry I don't have a picture...it was really pretty especially with the nice bright green pieces of asparagus...

On a related note....if you come across fiddlehead ferns at your local grocer - give them a try! They are quite tasty :) I sauteed them with mushrooms and leeks...yummy!