Nachos for dinner. That’s what I did last night.. I had nachos for dinner. Not as a snack, not as an appetizer, but as my meal. They were delicious, I took pictures, here we go.
Step 1 – Stuff to buy
You need some hardware to make these nachos. Namely, a grill (although an oven would suffice) and a cast iron pot. I have one of those Lodge cast iron pot’s that I used to make this amalgamation of chips and cheese.
Ingredient wise, get yourself some tortilla chips, cheese (I like the pre-shredded Mexican blend), Ro*Tel tomato’s, Black Beans, sour cream, guacamole, peppers and a protein. Typically people use something like seasoned ground beef which is always good, I used some frozen “Gardenburger” black bean cakes.
Step 2 – Mash it all together. Well.. don’t mash it.. and not all of it.. Ok just keep reading
What you really want to do is create some layers of chips and cheese. On the bottom of the pot, create a layer of chips. Then, cover with cheese. Then more chips, and more cheese, and more chips… and more cheese. I did 3 layers, but you can do as many as you want. After the chips and cheese are down, add your protein (I thawed out my black bean cakes and crumbled them on the top of the pile), tomato’s, black beans, and peppers. And that’s it.
Step 3 – Get Cookin
Get your grill and crank up the heat to about 400 or so. Put the cover on your cast iron pot and place on the grill, and then close the grill. Let it cook and blend together, wait until the chips just start to brown, and you’re good to go. I left mine in for 8 minutes or so, and it was probably slightly too long, but I think I need to make this again once or twice to really determine the best way to cook this all together.
Step 4 – Top it off
This thing is hot! The cast iron pots hold their heat an incredibly long time. It’s a good lesson when cooking with these however, just because it’s removed from the grill doesn’t mean it stops cooking. However, now’s the time to take the pot off of the grill and top it with your “fixin’s” – sour cream, guacamole, etc. Now take a fork and dig in. Enjoy!
Impressions
I’m not much of a cook, so anytime I make something edible, I’m pretty proud. However, this I thought came together well for not doing much with it. Next time, I’ll season more (seems to be a recurring theme with me). The chips also got soggy. Perhaps I left these in too long.. or perhaps it’s just a part of the process, but this wasn’t a pick and grab type of nacho, this was a use a fork (and even a spoon if you want) nacho. Still, I enjoyed, but these didn’t have a crunch like I hoped for. However, the bottom of the pot was the best part. I somehow got this nice, crisp of burn\fried chips that lined the bottom of the pot (I’m thinking there was residual oil from previous cooking), I was able to almost peel the bottom of the nacho’s to eat some of them, it was a nice treat.
