Asparagus and Tomato au Gratin, with seafood

This is one of the very first dishes we were introduced to here in the US, more than seven years ago. And we have to thank Martine for it. Back in the day, she was a French graduate student at Peter's department at Caltech, and we shared an apartment with her for our first month in Pasadena. We also shared our love for garlic, cheese and wine (though understandably her knowledge of cheese and probably wine, too, far exceeded ours).

For this wonderfully simple asparagus-tomato au gratin you only need a bunch (approx. 1 lb.) of asparagus spears, cleaned, trimmed, and broken in 2 inches pieces, 3 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced, a lot of minced garlic (as many as you like) - for this dinner I used 7 cloves, 2 tbs olive oil,  freshly ground pepper and sea salt, and 1 tablespoon Herbes de Provence. In a greased 8 inch baking dish simply layer the asparagus spears, half the garlic and seasoning, then the tomatoes, remaining seasoning and garlic, drizzle withe some more olive oil, and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until tomatoes are softened. Serve with baked fish, or pan fried shellfish and rice. We usually serve it with mixed shellfish (or just scallops), but today I've decided to try it with baked salmon.

However, as simple as the recipe sounds, my life got a little bit complicated this evening, when my oven died on me just as I was about to pop in the prepared vegetables and fish... "What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do?" Here I was, on the verge of a panic attack, when I suddenly realized I could after all cook everything on the stove top... So I quickly heated some olive oil in two skillets, threw all the vegetables in one, placed the salmon in the other one, and everything was ready in 10 minutes (5 minutes for the vegetables, 10 for the fish). So what you see in the picture is not asparagus au gratin, but stir fried. It was still very good, and in the future, when I'm pressed for time, or it's too hot outside for baking, this is how I'll prepare it for a quick dinner.

Added July 15th:

It's July already and we still can't get enough asparagus... Today, after getting some great Gulf shrimps at a reasonable price at HEB, we decided to serve it with sauteed asparagus and tomatoes.

Shrimp is fairly easy and unbelievably quick to prepare, it takes (much) longer to peel and devein it than to cook it. I usually just sautee 3-4 cloves minced garlic in a little olive oil, add some pepper flakes and the shrimps, season with salt and some black pepper, and cook them turning once for 2-3 minutes, then add the juice of half a lemon, cook 1-2 minutes longer  and it's done (you can season it with chopped parsley, I just didn't have any today).