Eli’s Favorite Nachos

I hate it that I’ve been away from here for so long. I cringed when I realized my last post was published April 10. But I guess that’s what happens when you find yourself suddenly planning a wedding.

Oh, so yeah – I’m engaged. Said engagement happened April 13 – three days after my last post. Is my absence starting to make sense?

Here I am, just moments after Eli popped the question, atop an observation platform at Blandford Nature Center, the site of our first date:

Eli must have finally decided he wants to eat my cooking forever. And he must be okay with spending the rest of his life trying to avoid eating green things and failing at it. Because I will win. He will eat vegetables. Daily. Until he dies (unless I die first).

All this to say that a ferocious beast, also known as The Wedding Tornado, has pretty much overtaken my life, because W-Day is soon. The August 11 kind of soon. Yes, that would be August 2011. And no, I’m not pregnant (several people have very ostentatiously asked this question, so I figure I might as well lay it to rest here in cyberpublic).

I suppose you’ll want to know why we’re taking the Speedy Gonzales approach to getting married. It’s pretty simple, actually. My sister’s husband, who is a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force, is being relocated to the Azores (a group of islands off the coast of Portugal). He reports for duty August 30. So if I want my sister, who is also my best friend, to be the maid of honor at my wedding (which I do), we have to get hitched before they leave. Which could be as early as August 15.

To add to the chaos involved in attempting to figure out a date on which we could feasibly get married prior to August 15, Eli’s brother Josh, who is currently serving with the Army in Afghanistan, should arrive home around July 30. Or a few days later. Oh, and by the way, he’s Eli’s best man. So it’s rather important that he be here as well.

This left us with about a two-week window during which we will hopefully have both our siblings present to witness us signing away our autonomy. And that, friends, is how we ended up with a Thursday wedding. April is awfully late to be booking anything for a summer wedding in Michigan.

Anyway, we have a fabulous farm venue, and I have a dress, and the invitations have gone out, and I suddenly found that I had a few minutes to do something other than just organize my wedding – so here I am.

Unfortunately, all of the above has also affected my life in the kitchen, which is to say that I haven’t been doing much experimenting. I’ve only been to the farmers’ market once since it opened, and I have three new cookbooks that haven’t even been touched. <Sigh>. I need to get back to business, and I will. But it might not be regularly until September.

In the meantime, I’ve been making a lot of my standby recipes and a lot of our favorites. I’m glad it’s summer, meaning there’s grilling out to be done and lots of fresh fruit and vegetables as they come into season. It’s easy to cook off-the-cuff in the summer.

One of Eli’s favorite dinners is actually non-seasonal: deep dish nachos, a “recipe” I picked up from my mom (I put recipe in quotation marks because I have never actually written it down anywhere before – it’s just filed away in my brain). She made these nachos often when I was growing up, although of course I’ve changed the details somewhat according to my own tastes. For example, she puts raw veggies on hers; I saute my veggies a little. She tops her with fresh tomatoes; I tend to use sliced black olives.

You can make these with ground beef, turkey, chicken, or venison (of course). You can also use cooked, shredded chicken that has then been sauteed with the seasoning mixture.

I don’t get fancy with the seasonings in this recipe. I use plain ol’ packaged taco seasoning. I love the flavor, and I’m not going to bother trying to replicate it.

For this post, I’m going to aspire to the standards of Pioneer Woman, meaning I’ve photographed each step for you. Let me know if you like this approach – it may help me convince Eli to let me buy a professional camera, like this one, in order to provide better images. And wouldn’t that be lovely?

Ok. Here goes.

Eli’s Favorite Nachos


1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 medium sweet yellow onion, chopped
1 pound ground meat or shredded chicken
1 can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 heaping tablespoon (or one packet) taco seasoning
corn tortilla chips (about 1/2 bag)
2-3 cups shredded cheese (mild cheddar, colby, monterery jack, or a mixture)
1 small can sliced black olives (optional)
Salsa and sour cream for serving

Chop the onion and peppers, like so.

Saute them in a tablespoon or so of olive oil until they’re just tender, and remove to a side plate or bowl.

In the same pan, chop up your meat and saute until browned. Drain off any fat! Add the kidney beans, taco seasoning, and about 1/2 cup of water. Cook down until the liquid is dissolved. Also, turn on your oven to preheat it – 400 degrees.

Layer tortilla chips in a casserole dish or a 9″ x 13″ cake pan.

Add the seasoned meat mixture.

Add the veggies.

Add the cheese. Sprinkle sliced olives on top, if you’re using them (I didn’t this time).

Bake for about 10 minutes, until the cheese is all melted, like this.

Serve with salsa and sour cream. Guacamole is great, too, if you’re inclined.

Yum!