Besides the list of ingredients and the directions for preparing a meal, a lot of recipes give a prep time and cooking time to give you an idea of how long it will take you to prepare the meal or cake or cookies or whatever. I usually look at that number and double it 'cause that's how long it takes me.

I don't know why it takes me longer. Everyone tells me that it will get better with practice but it's not like I'm completely new to cooking. I would think that I have enough practice by now, at least with the recipes that I know well. Needless to say, because of my propensity to take forever when cooking, I was shocked and amazed at how quickly last night's dinner was put together, especially since I had never prepared that particular recipe before. Not only was it a quick, easy recipe but, and this is the important part, I had gotten all my ingredients together and somewhat prepared before I even started cooking. The lemon was grated, the asparagus was chopped, all that was left to do was boil the pasta and cook the sauce.

The actual dish was delicious, nice and light. The lemon was subtle as was the parmesan that I added at the last minute. I don't think I put enough asparagus in but that was because I was using up the last of it from last week's farmer's market run. I look forward to making it again. Maybe I'll add some grilled chicken and lemons the next time. It would be good with a different kind of pasta too, maybe a farfalle or penne. What asparagus was in the dish was kind of hidden in the cappellini.