Our Favorite Meal

Gary and I have decided it would be fun to begin sharing one of our other major loves: cooking.  We have no illusions that we'll become famous food bloggers a la The Pioneer Woman or Indiana's own Annie's Eats, but we do make some good food.  So, every once in awhile we'll share with you our successes (and hopefully not too many failures) in the kitchen.  A family friend told us upon our marriage that love grows in the kitchen.  We have definitely found that to be true and enjoy our time spent together cooking our meals.

We'd like to start our sharing with our hands-down-favorite-easy-meal.  When Gary and I started officially dating, by which I mean going on car dates, our favorite restaurant to go to was TGI Fridays.  One of our favorite menu items at Fridays is the tostado nachos.  The nachos are the right mix of cheesy spicy goodness.  For whatever reason, it took us ten years or more to discover how to make these cheesy bites at home.

We start with browning a pound of ground beef and seasoning with taco flavoring (we recently invested in a giant container from Sam's, though we used to mix our own).  Meanwhile, we warm on the stove a can of refried black beans (avoid the Target market pantry brand--very bland).  Once these two items are finished, we combine them in a mixing bowl.

At this point, we turn on our broiler to high.  We then prepare to assemble our tostados.  We've tried several brands of tostado rounds.  The best deal is the kind that comes in a plastic bag, but the Ortega rounds in a box are less likely to break and are flatter.  We don't have a flavor preference.

To assemble our tosados, we place 2 rounds per person on a cookie sheet.  Then schmear a thin-ish layer of the meat/bean mixture.  We cover this generously with shredded cheddar cheese (we like a medium sharpness, thick shred).  We also add canned jalapenos, either diced or in rounds.  Then pop the cookie sheet on the middle rack under the broiler.  We keep a close eye on the oven window to pull out the tostados as soon as the cheese is completely melted and the edges of the tostado rounds are browning.

Once we remove the cookie sheet, we remove the tostados one at a time onto a wooden cutting board to cut them in half.  We each get 4 halves.  For the longest time we only used sour cream as a topping for these nachos, but lately we've also added guacamole, Gary's homemade salsa, or a fresh red onion & cilantro garnish.  Each is delicious!

This meal is so easy and so yummy.  During our 3L year of law school, we ate these nearly every week.  We don't ever get sick of them!

Here's the final product:

we'll practice our photography skills to better show off our food!

 Gary's guacamole is pretty awesome, too.  He uses 3 ripe avocados, minced garlic, salt, 1 jalapeno, red onion (very very finely minced), a couple spoonfuls of our awesome salsa (Gary says the secret is to use the "salsa juice"), a touch of pepper, and cilantro.  Oh, and you can't forget lime juice.

mmm, garlic.

Our salsa recipe is also quite straight forward and has been a hit at several carry-ins.

1 can diced tomatoes, do not drain

1/2 medium red onion, rough dice

1 TB minced garlic

Palm full or two of cilantro (leaves and top part of stems)

1 jalapeno (or 2 for medium heat), de-seeded and de-veined

At least 1 ts kosher salt (to taste)

About 4 or 5 grinds of fresh cracked pepper

Juice of one lime or about 1 TB of lime juice

1/4 ts cumin

Pour can tomatoes in food processor first, then the onions.  Add remaining ingredients.  Whiz for about 5 seconds or until desired consistency reached.  Refrigerate or serve immediately!