Beautiful Day in the Swamp

It is a beautiful spring day here in the swamp, temps in the 70's, though they're threatening us with a 97 for later in the week.  Mac is out working in the yard, cutting back bushes and cleaning the front of the house.  I'd told him I'd be out too, but my allergies are driving me wild so I stayed in and cleaned instead.  His allergies are acting up too, but he just keeps going.
Fixed something new yesterday, The Low Carb Diabetic posted a recipe for Asparagus done with sliced almonds, butter and Manchengo cheese. They're always posting great recipes over there.  This one looked so good I had to give it a try and except for having to substitute Pecorino Romano
for the Manchego I used the same ingredients and it was fantastic.  Definitely one I'll keep in the rotation for summer meals.

To go with it I fixed Raviolis in a tomato/meat sauce.  I didn't make the Raviolis, but I did make the sauce and together they were great.




Here's their recipe for the Asparagus:
Ingredients:
Serves Six
36 asparagus spears
140g unsalted butter
100g whole blanched almonds (or toasted pine nuts if preferred)
juice of 1 lemon
50g best-quality Manchego cheese (or a vegetarian hard cheese could be used)

Method:
1. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and plunge in the asparagus. Cook for 2-3 minutes, drain, then leave them to sit somewhere warm.
2. Next, put the butter into a cold pan with the almonds. Carefully heat it up, watching that the butter doesn’t get too dark. When it just turns golden brown and is beginning to foam, remove from the heat and pour in the lemon juice to stop the cooking.
3. Arrange the asparagus onto 6 serving plates and spoon over some of the brown butter and almonds. Shave the cheese with a peeler, scatter over and serve.

From an original BBC Food recipe

The flowers are from the garden, hope the heat doesn't do them in this week.