Sweet Chili Butter Grilled Lobster Fries with Havarti Cheese.

{This post is sponsored by Castello!}

Umm, yess. We are totally doing cheese fries today!!

I know, I know! I am beyond excited too! I mean, not only do we have cheese fries, but they’re cheese fries with buttery lobster, and an Aged Havarti cheese sauce, oh, and fresh grilled corn too. YESSS!

So here’s the deal, I am really excited to be partnering with Castello Cheese on a couple of posts this summer. About a month ago I went on trip with them to Napa Valley, CA to do a whirlwind cheese and wine tasting! Seeing as I love cheese (probably a little too much), clearly this was a good trip for me! 🙂

It’s no secret that I’m pretty familiar with cheese. I mean, did you happen to catch my hour-long snapchat on Saturday? If not, it was a “summer cheeseboard 101”. I went into full detail on all the cheeses, plus all the things you can and should be putting on your cheese boards. Not going to lie, I was probably kind of obnoxious, but hey, we made a pretty epic cheese board together!

Anyway, while I’m really familiar with cheese, wine is a fairly new thing for me. Meaning, I really know not a thing about it. That’s why this little trip to wine country was so important for me…I mean, aside from eating amazing cheese and getting to talk about the grand old city of Cleveland with Michael Symon, of course. Yeah, so aside from those things, I also learned so much about wine and food pairings, which in my world is a very important topic to know about.

While I learned a lot, I am not a pro, and still learning every day, but I now feel a little more confident putting out a bottle of Rose’ with my cheese board! Cool, cool!

SIDE NOTE: can we just talk about Napa Valley for a second?

Oh my gosh, to everyone who lives there or travels there often, I am so jealous! Napa Valley, CA might be one of the prettiest places you can live. I stayed in the town of Yountville, which is probably the cutest little small town ever. Plus, there’s a Bouchon Bakery there. While I didn’t get to eat there (it was a very short one day, one night stay), that bakery gives the town MAJOR bonus points in my book, you know? And yumm!

In the morning the skies were filled with boundless numbers of hot air balloons. Oh my gosh, I totally put that up on snapchat. If you follow me, you may remember those snaps, but basically that is LIVING right there. So beautiful, so fun. LOVE! If I ever get a chance to head back that way, do you guys have suggestions as to what I should see, eat and do? I loved all your thoughts on my potential Italy trip, so lets hear your ideas on Napa Valley! 🙂

Alrighty, now let’s talk Sweet Chili Butter Grilled Lobster Fries!

Do these not look and sound incredible?! I have to say, they’re pretty freaking delish. Kind of indulgent, but that’s A-OK every once in a while. Remember, it’s all about balance! 🙂

First things first, start off with your fries. Just simple oven fries is all you need, but don’t worry, they’re going to be the most epic base for that Aged Havarti cheese sauce, and that sweet chili butter lobster!! YUM

For the lobster, I grilled mine to make things super easy. Honestly, I think it took like five to ten minutes total and my tales were cooked and ready to be tossed in butter… oh that butter! You cannot do lobster without butter, so I did a spicy sweet butter with chilies, honey, garlic and basil. It is everything.

And then, my favorite part! The cheese… I mean, yah.

The Aged Havarti is the perfect paring with the lobster. It’s both creamy and buttery. DELISH. Now, taking what I learned in Napa, I paired these fries with Napa Valley Zinfandel. The perfect cheese and wine paring!

Maybe…

Cheese and Lobster Fries anyone? I’m down with that!

{This post is sponsored by Castello. Thank you for supporting the brands that keep Half Baked Harvest cooking!! }