No Cover Charge, Come as You Are, I Love This Bar

Pico de Gallo, Green Chile Ranch, Roasted Tomato and Tomatillo Chile Salsa

If you find yourself with sauces and salsas, then it's an obvious pathway to a Nacho Bar dinner.  And one way to find yourself with sauces is to make them all at once.  Its basically the same players with some variation, so roasting the ingredients at the same time, in different pans allows the process to go much quicker.  Chopping the fresh pico can happen whilst the others are roasting.  I took about a cup of the roasted tomatillos, jalapeno, onion, garlic and cilantro blend and mixed it with a couple of teaspoons of ranch and a huge dollop of sour cream, to get a tangy ass dip that could be used as a chicken marinade for sure.  

Cherry Tomatoes can be jam packed with flavor but are a bitch to chop, so this is a labor of love but this pico de gallo is definitely worth it because the vibrancy pops in your mouth.  

For the bar, I usually make two sheet pans of plain chips with cheddar cheese and fresh jalapenos only and then put out the various toppings so everyone can load their own.  

It's hard to invite too many vegetables to the party because not everyone gets along well with a cheesy chip. Ground beef or turkey, corn, lettuce or cabbage, refried beans, avocado, and green onions work very well. 

You Shook Me All Night Long

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South of the Border, Down Mexico Way

Cinco de Mayo Nachos

Woke with a mystery cough and feeling the kind of low that I decided to make another doctor's appointment.  Somehow P was on the upswing, so I rode with him to get groceries to Fairway by the water.  I needed to get it up for my team and try to pull off a celebrational dish for the holiday.  I've never made a cheese sauce before and thought that might be interesting for steak nachos.  It was good, but a different nacho experience entirely.  I felt bad because I could enjoy the fresh take but P is not a wet nacho type of guy.  He likes traditional cheese on chips with a jalapeno, extras on the side that you can dip and add but nothing smothered like this.  You would think after so many years, I would never falter but the truth is I had been obsessed with watching Sam the Cooking Guy on YouTube at night and he drove me to this sauce.  I had to make it.  We have a similar take on food and I found an odd culinary compadre during lockdown.

A midday quesadilla snack treat

Pico de gallo, Chipotle salsa and guacamole starters

Making the basics is not hard at all but there is a lot of chopping, roasting, mashing, mixing and blending so after I got this little trio made I took a long nap before finishing the job.

Valentino Pier Red Hook Brooklyn

Fight the Power

At first glance, this is just a plate of nachos which is still true but I've made some simple changes that make them better for us to enjoy.

Did you know there is 1800 plus mg of sodium in half a cube of chicken bouillon??? That is so insane. At the airport, that amazing spicy tomato juice...over 1200mgs of sodium. My dad can't eat salt so it was a little eye opening to look at all the salt I consume without ever picking up the shaker.

And its not like I was totally unaware. I've been cutting back for a few years but I need to quit half-assing my attempts. This is serious business and I don't want to be handing half of my social security check back to Pfizer or any other crooked drug company. Lousy bastuhds. Who knows if half the crap they're pumping into my mom and dad is even necessary.

Tonight I wanted an easy supper, nothing heavy. I made over my usual cheese laden (but good!) loaded ground beef nachos with refried beans and all the extras.

I used gluten free organic blue wheat low-sodium corn chips.

The ground beef was replaced with ground turkey. Finally a sale - thanks PathMark! I could buy a huge pork shoulder for what you usually charge for a few pounds of this stuff.

I used just a small amount of extra sharp cheddar to coat each chip instead of drowning them in cheese.

I mixed black beans, garlic and pickled jalepenos with the ground turkey and piled it on the side.

Lots of fresh pico de gallo with added tomato sauce to stretch the fresh tomatoes.

Finally I replaced the sour cream with Greek yogurt, which honestly I couldn't tell the difference.



Spending time at hospitals and knowing high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and other goodies might be in-store for me too, I'm rethinking some of the salt and fat, preservatives and chemicals in our food.

Now these are still very tasty but not forbidden or a bad choice. They're nacho mamas nachos!