"Asparagus" "Cashew" Rice Pilaf

As you can probably tell by the large amounts of quotation makes I used in the title for this recipe, I've made a lot of modifications to the original. I found this recipe because I wanted to try something different for dinners and I've modified it several times and it's pretty good. Also, its flexible, which is good when you have so many picky eaters in the house. :-P

The Original - Asparagus Cashew Rice Pilaf - From Allrecipes

2-3 tbsp butter
2 oz uncooked spaghetti, broken into pieces
1/4 cup minced onion
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 1/4 cups uncooked jasmine rice
2 1/4 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper
1/2 lb asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup cashew halves

Melt butter over medium-low heat. Increase heat, add spaghetti pieces and cook until lightly browned. Stir in onion and garlic and cook until tender (2 min). Stir in rice, cook another 5 min or so. Add broth. Bring to a boil and cook about 20 min or until liquid is gone. While rice is cooking, cook asparagus. When everything is ready, mix cashews and asparagus into rice.

Okay, so that's the original, but I've never made it that way.

For starters I've always used broccoli rather than asparagus. Mostly because I don't know the best way to cook asparagus.

Secondly, this dish was made as a 'vegan' dish. If you want to unvegan-ize it and also make it a lot more flavourful and yummy, replace the cashews with shrimp! It makes it so amazing, even if my dad refuses to eat it that way. :-P