zero-waste cheese

It took me a while to work up the nerve to ask for cheese to be put into my own container at the cheese counter. It's been long enough now that, as with most of these things, I can only wonder why I was nervous. When I ask I can tell that it is an odd request, but I've never felt anything but appreciated + intriguing (in a good way) for bringing my own container. My way of asking is to smile + say, "Hello! Could I please get about a 1/2-3/4 pound pepper jack...just in a block, because we like to grate it? (wait for the answer) And would you mind putting it in this?" Smile + big gratitude! "Thank you so much! I appreciate it!"

I like to get our cheese in a big block, because we like to grate it finely (using a flat parmesan cheese grater) for our meals. I believe that we eat less of the tasty but fatty stuff this way. We love pepper jack cheese (shown here), because it has a lot of taste...but switch it up too.

So in honor of zero-waste cheese, here is one of the ways we ate it this week along with a number of other zero-waste ingredients. Yum.

Zero-Waste Lemon Asparagus Couscous

Israeli couscous
butter
salt
asparagus, steamed
spinach, chopped
pepper flakes
chives
pepper jack cheese, grated
lemon

Once the couscous has "cooked", add butter + salt. Assemble + squeeze lemon over. Enjoy!

Love,
Jane