Parmesan, Lardo (Iowa White Spread) and fettuccini with Lardo Toast

Clearly an experiment. And it seemed to work pretty well. My favorite comment that I had about it was that I really don't need chap stick with this. So it was a nice balance between the noodles, white spread and parmesan. It made for a good, savory taste, and extra good on the toast. I would make this again, and I plan to use the Iowa White Spread in some other method.

Parmesan, Lardo and FettucciniIowa White Toast

Pumpkin Mac and Cheese

So easy enough, I took the baked mac and cheese recipe that I use (closely based on the Alton Brown version, I used smoked paprika). When cutting into it, you can certainly smell the pumpkin and it made for a creamier mixture (more liquid from the pumpkin puree). So to do this, I added 3/4ths to 1 cup of pumpkin puree. It was what I had left in the freezer. We both liked it and ate it on Thursday and again for lunch on Friday. I used extra breadcrumbs to get a better crust, that we both seem to like. I probably should have used a bit more cheese and butter on the crust portion, but it still turned out very well.

Pumpkin Mac and Cheese crustPumpkin Mac and Cheese, served

Smoky Chipotle-Chocolate Chili (Movie Night)

So this:

2 canned chipotle Chiles in adobo, minced

Really messed me up. The way that this ingredient is listed I think of it in two ways. Either it means 2 peppers from can of chipotle chilies in adobo, or 2 cans of chipotle chilies in adobo. I don't think that it's abundantly clear here. I actually thought about it while making this. To me it would make the most sense if they would put in either 2 cans or 2 peppers/chilies, and that would make it more clear, so because it was that way, I used two cans. So was it smoky? Yes. Was it spicy? quite a bit to much. I even added quite a bit more of the tomato puree to add volume and reduce the peppers to everything else ratio. No such luck. Even though I tend to make new things quite often, I feel some dread before something new gets the external stamp of approval. So to get around the spiciness, people changed this vegan chili to a vegetarian chili, by adding cheese and a whole lot of sour cream. With that, it made it semi-palatable, though still far too spicy. I had some on leftover mac and cheese and some at the office for lunch and there is still some left. So I'm slowly working my way through it.

Burgers

Yep. We used some of the leftover BBQ sauce that. I looked for grass fed beef at Hy-Vee again, but didn't find any.

Chicken Tacos

Some ground chicken...ka done.