Cheese and chocolate

Let’s get this pesto party started!

First up, butternut noodles with arugula, baked salmon, pesto, and manchego.

About the manchego…

I am still enjoying the cheeses from the Costco sampler I got.  It has proved to be a very economical purchase.  And to think I hemmed and hawed about it for AN ETERNITY before Kyle grabbed it from me and threw it in the cart.

I’m going to go all out of order with meals in the interest of continuing to showcase some things I’ve done with the cheese.

For two of my lunches this week I have used the leftover lentils with dressing.

The first bowl had roasted Brussels, manchego, and rosemary marcona almonds.

SO GOOD.

For the second version, I added way more kale massaged in balsamic vinaigrette.

As well as both drunken goat and manchego cheese and more almonds.

Since it was the last of the lentils I just ate it out of the huge serving bowl that I’d kept them in all week.

Plus carrots, because always always always carrots 😛

And now back to the non-sheep cheese eats.

Pizza night!  Always a win in this house – like every stereotypical house in America no doubt.  I made mine on a Simple Mills crust (that I had leftover from when I made two a while back).  Kyle and the kids’ pizzas were on Vicolo crusts.  Mine and the kids’ had vegan cheese, whereas Kyle’s had cow milk cheese.  And then we all got pepperoni.  We finished off every single bite.  Not even a crumb was left behind.

I tried my hand at carne asada using Danielle Walker’s recipe for the meat portion.

I made the marinade the night before and left it overnight and all day.  This meat was on mega sale at Nugget a while back so I bought it and put it in the freezer for a rainy day.

Rather than mess with it on the stove top or grilling, I just used the instant pot.

I added the entire contents of the bag into the pot (including the marinade) and sauteed it for a few minutes before setting it to cook under high pressure for 6 minutes…followed by a natural release.

I know it doesn’t look like much but OMG it was heavenly.

First off the smell was DIVINE.  The whole house was drooling waiting for dinner.

Second, it fell apart it was so tender.

And then we tasted it!! Wow!  Danielle’s recipes are always such winners.  I didn’t follow the rest of her recipe for the salad and instead made it into a bowl with rice, corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, romaine, and avocado.

I thought I had a whole avo, but it turns out I only had a half, so that was a sad thing to divide four ways.  Still, the meal rocked all of our socks off and there was no meat leftover.

I finally caved and bought myself chocolate.  Well, technically, Kyle bought it (because I was still holding out but he wanted to treat me before he headed out of town).  Lula’s is SO GOOD.  The dark aloha rocky road has marshmallows and macadamia nuts covered by dark chocolate. Yes, it tastes as incredible as it sounds.

Aaaaand this lil platter has just about everything on it.

The caramelized blood orange Bissinger’s grows on me every time I re-try it.  The first bite is bizarre and different and unique and not something I typically am into, buuuuuuut then I find myself wanting more and more.  But the chocolove still ranks higher.  And the dark chocolate walnuts are even higher than that.