Do you guys ever feel like you have about 15 million more things on your to-do list every day than you can possibly do? Yeah, that’s where I am right now. Like I mentioned earlier this week, my family and I just got home from vacation on Monday and then today, Sara and I are heading to Dallas for a speaking engagement. I literally haven’t unpacked my vacation suitcase yet, let alone packed my work suitcase. We’re feverishly putting final touches and turning in final edits on our next book. Yesterday, I literally changed out of my pajama pants into real pants (and by “real pants,” I mean yoga pants) so I could pay my daughter’s dance tuition. Right now, all I want to do is paint my front door, make yummy food, put together a baby crib, plant flowers, and take a nap, but that will have to wait until after next weekend.
I’m not complaining–I’m grateful for our opportunities, and honestly, I’d rather be busy than not busy. But simple things like dinner are also stressing me out. I’m sick of eating out, I don’t have a huge appetite, and I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, so I guess I’m kind of in the mood for fancy-ish comfort food. That’s easy. And not horrible for me. Not a terribly tall order, right? Yeah, right.
I kind of threw this together using my favorite Alfredo sauce and some fresh produce I had in my fridge. And it ended up being so so so so good. SO good. I kind of wish I’d thrown a few shrimp sauteed in the lemon olive oil, but even still, it was one of the best things I’d eaten in a long time.
To get started, break the tough ends off of a pound of asparagus and thickly slice about 3-4 cups of whole mushrooms.
Preheat your oven to 400. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and set it aside.
Using a fine grater or Microplane, zest 2 lemons (or enough to get 1 tablespoon lemon zest). Juice the 2 lemons (or enough to get about 1/4 cup of lemon juice)…
Add 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 4-5 cloves minced garlic, 1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon Creole or coarse-grain mustard, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt.
Whisk the mixture together and then toss it with the mushrooms and asparagus. Spread the veggies onto the prepared baking sheet and roast it in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until the veggies are tender but not mushy. Remove from the oven and allow to stand for 5-10 minutes.
While the veggies are roasting, cook 8 ounces linguine in salted water al dente and prepare a batch of Guiltless Alfredo Sauce. After you add the Parmesan cheese, add the lemon zest. You can either portion out the pasta, sauce, and veggies into individual servings or toss it all together. Serves 6-8.
Roasted Asparagus and Mushroom Pasta in Lemon-Cream Sauce
Recipe by Our Best Bites
1 lb. asparagus, tough ends snapped off
3-4 cups whole mushrooms, thickly sliced
5-6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1/4 cup strained lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon Creole or coarse-grain mustard
8 ounces uncooked linguine
1 recipe Guiltless Alfredo Sauce
Optional: Grilled chicken breast or sauteed shrimp
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine trimmed asparagus and sliced mushrooms. Zest the lemons (enough to get 1 tablespoon of zest) and set the zest aside.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and mustard. Drizzle over the veggies and toss to combine. Spread the veggies out onto the prepared baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes or until the asparagus is tender but not mushy. Remove from oven and allow to stand for 5-10 minutes.
While the veggies are roasting, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and, when the water is ready, cook pasta al dente. Prepare the Alfredo sauce. After you’ve added the cheese, add the reserved lemon zest to the sauce. When the asparagus and mushrooms are done roasting, you can either portion out the pasta, veggies, and sauce into individual servings or toss it all together. Serves 6-8.
Questions & Reviews
Shut the front door! This is SO GOOD!!! We roasted the chicken, and since we didn’t have asparagus, we roasted mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, which turned out SO yummy. To add a little green to the meal, we added in fresh spinach to wilt in the sauce before we served it over wheat noodles. I feel like every other day I’m telling all my coworkers and friends about this AMAZING thing I made for dinner, and like 90% of the time, it comes from y’all! Keep it up ladies. You are keeping my household happy and full 🙂
This is amazing. I added shrimp…definitely going on in my “go to” recipes!
This recipe is awesome! I had my husband make it for dinner (yes, my husband is awesome) the night you posted it and it turned out so good. We took your suggestion and added shrimp. Even my kids gobbled it up. My husband says this is one of his new favorites!
Love, Love, LOVE. Thank you!!
Okay, so it’s not that this doesn’t look good, but I was trying to post that comment on the no-mess frosting post. I have no idea how I got it on the wrong one. LOL. Making icing decorations was my day job at one point, but when I have to just use it at home here and there it’s a mess and a pain. Your tip will definitely help me a lot. 😀
Wow! For a “throw-together” meal, this was incredible! I could never throw something together and have it turn out so well. I made this exactly as your recipe stated without any alterations (except I only roasted my asparagus for 13 minutes because it was so thin), and it was delicious. I served it with a tossed green salad and homemade french bread. My husband had two large servings and my kids devoured it. The sauce was divine. I’ve never made your guitless alfredo sauce before though I’ve meant to for ages! I’ve been missing out! Thanks for a keeper of a recipe. Good luck with your busy, busy life and your miles-long to-do list.
Just made this for dinner and loved it! Thanks so much for another wonderful recipe.
I made this last night, and it was super delicious! 20 minutes was too long for the asparagus to roast in my oven but it was perfect for the mushrooms, so next time I will roast the mushrooms for 10 minutes, add the asparagus and roast everything for 10 more minutes. I will also make more mushrooms because they shrink down a lot! So lemon-y and fresh delicious, thanks very much for the recipe.
We are entering asparagus season here in Australia – looking forward to trying this recipe. Thanks!
Yes, the recipe sounds delicious, but that is no surprise everything from the blog and cookbook is wonderful. I need clarification on another topic please. Having followed your blog for years I feel like best girl friends, we’ve just never met in person, so you can imagine my shock when I see things like “put together a crib” “take a nap” “not much appetite” – did I miss an announcement!? And if so congratulations are definitely in order! Thanks for all the food (and crafts, decorations, party, etc. . ) inspiration fabulousness.
LOVED seeing yall in Arlington today! Thanks for the laughs, we had such a fun time! Love, Love, Love your blog and have been a follower for a while!
Thanks so much for coming to Dallas for TOFW. I was so impressed with you and Sara and really enjoyed your presentation. I love your blog and was so excited to hear you guys speak. You were awesome!! Thanks for inspiring us and making us all laugh!
Dear Kate, This recipe looks great! As you know, I’m always looking for something easy, fast, and good for quick dinners. Thanks so very much for coming to see us last week with your cute Clark, Meredith, and husband, Sam. I still can’t believe how delicious and beautiful your sugar cookies with Glace’ Icing were. Also the District 11 Bread Rolls were about the best rolls I’ve ever eaten! I have to tell all of your readers that the photos on your blog are very good, but truly don’t do justice to the real thing! I was VERY impressed! Love, Lorraine Randle
I made this for dinner last night and it was fabulous! I used “normal” mustard because that’s what we had and I didn’t wany to buy a bottle of something different. I couldn’t taste it at all. My husband thought it was a “little too lemony” but I thought it was wonderful!! Thanks so much for a new recipe. Oh, I also made your guiltless alfredo sauce – easy and so good! It was my first time making my own alfredo sauce and I will definitely make it again! Thanks again!
Oooooo, I love asparagus. I love mushrooms. I love pasta. I love Alfredo sauce. I’m getting very hungry.
Looks pretty great for a thrown-together meal! I love mushrooms so much, and they are such a great compliment to alfredo pasta. I love the idea of adding asparagus to it! Great post!
I know you said that the creole mustard is super cheap, but would any other kind of mustard work fine with this as well? Is the creole mustard just used for texture since it’s gritty or for flavor also?
You could use another mild coarse-grain mustard, I just like creole because it has a great, mild, complementary flavor; yellow mustard is too distinct, Dijon is too strong, and a lot of other coarse mustards are very strong, too. Walmart actually has a great, mild coarse mustard.
I’m glad I read this, I don’t have any of those mustards, just honey, spicy brown, and regular. maybe I’ll just use a dash of dry..
Ya know those terribly annoying comments that make you cringe and think, “whatever you like, dummy!” ? Well….this is one of those comments. Sorry! 🙂 Not a mushroom person, but do love the idea of another veggie in the pasta. Since there is lemon involved (which I never cook with – throws off my brain palette) what other veggies would you recommend?
Wow – not only one of those dumb questions, it was also terribly asked! Hope you can understand and forgive! Have a fabulous trip!!
Not dumb at ALL! 🙂 How do you feel about zucchini, because I came about this close to throwing those in there, too.
Love zucchini! Will be making this early next week! Thanks for the help!!
I added zucchini and broccoli, too. It was delish!
Exactly my thoughts today, don’t want to eat out and can’t make up my mind what I want to make. I do have aparagus in my fridge. So that and baked chicken will do for today 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for this! I was trying to think of a meatless recipe to make tonight and this is perfect because I have everything on hand (minus the mushrooms, but they are not my favorite so I will have to use something else). Good luck getting everything done–I usually do things like create a list that’s humanly impossible to achieve in a day, especially with 3 kids around.
I have been waiting for something delicious to do with my asparagus. My dad grows it out by his back fence, so in the summer I have an unlimited supply. Looks delicious.
Good luck with your busy travel schedule. I hear everything is bigger in Texas, you’ll have to let us know if that’s true.
I hear ya on the to-do list…always the worst after the relaxation of vacation…it took me weeks to catch up after our last trip…but that dish looks like it more than makes up for it…thanks for sharing.
this is perfect, im adding it to my menu next week. is the mustard absolutely necessary? I know its only 1/4 tsp but I’m scared I’ll be able to taste it too much and don’t actually want to buy an entire jar of it if you know what I mean.
It doesn’t make it mustardy at ALL, it just rounds out the favors a little. The good news is that of you can find it, creole mustard is super super cheap (and it’s by far my favorite mustard–the only thing I use on sandwiches!)
We’ve just recently discovered that our 2 year old LOVES asparagus. Crazy. So, this is perfect. Can’t wait to try it!
My Goodness! You have done it again, actually that isn’t a surprise…you ladies are awesome like that :). Thank you for the awesome recipe, all of my favorite things in one dish…yes please!
All my favourite things in one dish, looks great!
This sounds delicious, I like the idea of adding shrimp. How do you make lemon olive oil?
Just use a little of the stuff you pour over the veggies. 🙂
Wow – that sounds amazing… I can’t wait to try this out!
I am packing bags to head to Dallas right now! I am so over the top excited to take off and have some ‘me’ time.
This looks delicious! Lemon is my new favorite when I want something to taste light and fresh. I think I need to go buy some asparagus so I can make it this weekend.
Good luck getting all your stuff done. I am right there with you — grateful for all the wonderful things in my life that keep me overwhelmingly busy.
Update: I made this for dinner last night and it was AWESOME! I did it with asparagus, broccoli, and ham and we loved it that way. Also, after glancing through some of the comments I just realized I totally left out the mustard (and it was fine but I bet it would be even better if I remembered to do it the right way). This was the first time I have made your guiltless alfredo sauce and now I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to try it. It was good enough to lick my plate, er, um, I mean sop up the extra sauce with my bread. 🙂
Where in Dallas? I want to come! 🙂
and that looks delicious! 🙂