Crazy good nachos.

Nachos are a frequent occurrence in our house. They tend to be pretty quick to make and are a great way to use leftovers. You can put almost anything on nachos and it’ll be good.

Also, I happen to be married to a Tex-mex fanatic.

So yea… we know our way around a chip.

My problem with nachos, mainly restaurant nachos, is that sometimes they are made in a careless way. Throw some crappy chips on a sheet pan, pile on a metric ton of random toppings, and coat everything with a two inch layer of cheese. Once you sit down to eat it, it’s like a scavenger hunt: searching through a mound trying to find that one perfect chip. The chip that is crispy, has just enough of each topping, and some melted cheese.

Sometimes it’s hopeless.

So while nachos are a quick weeknight meal for us a lot of times, sometimes I like to really spend time on my nachos to make them something special. I call these Sunday night nachos because while you could make them on a weeknight, they are better if you can spend some time with them.

The time you invest will pay pretty awesome Tex-mex dividends.

Sunday Night Nachos

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

15 corn tortillas, cut into sixths
1-2 cups vegetable oil, for frying chips

Bean Mash:
2 cans kidney beans, drained and mashed
1/4 red onion, minced
Handful of cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper

Ground Beef mixture:
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped peppers, poblano, red pepper, jalapeno, etc.
1/2 Cup salsa
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
1 Teaspoon paprika
Salt and pepper

Cheese Sauce:
1/4 Cup unsalted butter
1/4 Cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
2 cups grated cheese (I like Monterey Jack)
Salt and pepper

Quick Guacamole:
2 avocados
2 limes, juice only
1/4 red onion, diced
Handful of cilantro
Salt

Directions:

1) For the chips, cut the tortillas into sixths. Add a cup or two of oil to a large sturdy pan and add chips in small batches over medium-high heat. Cook the chips, turning occasionally, until they are lightly browned and not bubbling. Then remove them to a paper towel to drain. Salt lightly.

2) For bean mash, drain beans and lightly mash together with other ingredients. It doesn't have to be smooth.

3) Use any meat or veggie mixed with onions, peppers, salsa, and spices as a second topping for the chips.

4) For cheese sauce, start butter and flour over medium-high heat and cook, whisking frequently, for about 4 minutes. Roux should turn lightly brown. Then slowly whisk in milk until smooth. Once mixture thickens, whisk in cheese. If mixture is too thick, add more milk a few tablespoons at a time. Keep on low heat until needed.

5) Take each chip and top with a small amount of bean mash and meat mixture. Add finished chips to baking sheets.

6) Bake chips for 5-6 minutes at 350 degrees to meld flavors.

7) Stack chips on plates, pour cheese sauce over chips, add a second layer, more cheese sauce, top with guacamole.

Serve immediately!

Making the Chips

Betsy and I burn through a lot of tortilla chips. We snack on chips and salsa a lot or make quick nacho dishes pretty regularly.

But, when I’m looking to make a serious nacho dish, I spend the time to make my own chips. For some reason store bought chips are pretty flimsy. It’s almost like they start with corn tortillas that are 1/2 the thickness as corn tortillas that you buy in the store. While taste and texture is the main motivator for me, making your own chips is also about 75% cheaper than buying the chips.

To make the chips, you don’t need to really deep fry them as some might think. I usually just add a cup or two of oil to a large heavy skillet and get it going over medium-high heat. Then I add my chips in a single layer and cook them, flipping occasionally.

You don't need a lot of oil.

You’ll know they are done when they stop bubbling and are golden brown (that means most of the water is out of them).

When they come out of the pan, let them drain on a paper towel and season them with a pinch of salt. These guys will be crispy and sturdy: important for nachos.

Thick and crispy!

The Toppings

For me, the toppings on nachos are almost secondary to the chips and the cheese. This is because I’ve learned that almost anything is good on nachos. Any leftover veggie or meat that you have can easily be mixed with some spices and used as a topping.

For this version though, I made a few mixtures that I used for my toppings. The first was a quick bean mash. I just drained a few cans of kidney beans and mashed them up with some red onion, cilantro, and salt and pepper.

It’s almost like refried beans, but there’s no need to cook it really because we’ll bake the nachos later.

Doesn't get easier than mashing beans.

For my meat topping, I cooked my onion and a few diced peppers in a bit of olive oil over medium-high heat until they were soft. Then I added some spices (cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt and pepper) and finally my ground beef.

Once the beef was completely cooked, I stirred in a tiny amount of salsa just to round out the flavors a bit.

Actually pretty optional.

Meanwhile, I mixed up a quick guacamole. This isn’t my full-fledged guacamole which normally includes serrano peppers, shallots, and maybe some tomatoes. This is a quicker version that mainly just has a lot of lime juice which will go great with the nachos.

Not optional.

The Cheese Sauce

A lot of times nachos get in trouble in the cheese department. Don’t get me wrong, I love cheese as much as the next guy, but sometimes people over-do it. Restaurants are particularly guilty of this. They’ll just add pounds of grated cheese to each nacho dish and that works for the first minute or so that you are eating them, but eventually all that cheese solidifies into this strange layer that’s almost impenetrable.

That’s why, when I have time, I like to make a cheese sauce. It’s easier to distribute over the nachos and will stay liquid and gooey even at room temperature. So even if the nachos cool down a bit (which they will do), your cheese will stay melty.

To make the sauce, you need to start with a basic roux, which is just butter and flour whisked together in a pot. I usually cook mine over medium heat for about 4 minutes. It’ll turn a light brown color and that’s when you know it’s done.

You'll roux the day you don't try these.

At this point, slowly whisk in the milk. If you whisk well and start slowly, you shouldn’t develop any lumps in your sauce. If you do have a few lumps, you can usually whisk them out as the sauce heats up.

Once your milk is whisked in and the sauce is thick, go ahead and add in your grated cheese.

What's sunday night without cheese sauce?

Once the cheese is melted, keep the sauce on low and stir it occasionally. If it gets too thick, add a bit more milk to thin it out. Keep it warm until you need it.

Baking the Nachos

The next step for these nachos might be considered a bit overkill by some, but I like it. When I have the time, I like to literally top each chip individually.

This might sound crazy, but what you have to remember is that these chips are way sturdier than normal chips. They are way more filling. When we are done, 15-20 of these nachos will be a very good meal.

And once you get the hang of it you can top them really quickly. It’s takes me under five minutes to do. I just pick up a chip, add a small amount of bean mash, followed by a small spoonful of the beef topping, and add it to a sheet pan. Repeat.

A little OCD never hurt...

The benefit of this is that there isn’t any one perfect chip.

They are all perfect. Every single chip will have the perfect amount of every topping.

Once you get all your chips topped, I recommend sticking them in a 350 degree oven for about 5-6 minutes just to heat them up nicely and meld the flavors.

Plating the nachos

FINALLY! It’s time to eat.

Now that you have your cheese sauce done and your chips topped, you can stack them up!

Layer one.

Once you have one layer of chips and cheese on a plate, you can add a second right on top.

Again, the great part about this is that the toppings are perfectly distributed. Even when you get down to the bottom layer, the chips are just as crispy and just as good as the top layer.

Stack 'em up!

Top the second layer with more cheese sauce and a good dollop of guacamole.

These are ready to eat!

There's no good chip here. They are all good.

I get that these might be too much work for some people. Nachos are supposed to be easy right?

But seriously, you’ll be well-rewarded if you can find the time to make these happen. Make them on a weekend when you can pop open a cerveza and take your time with them.

What do you think? Worth it or crazy talk?

It's like a flat taco!

Betsy would like to thank all of you who voted for the Tex-Mex dish in last week’s poll. She didn’t actually vote and when she saw the results she sighed a sigh of relief.

“I can’t believe you almost had to make a cake. Over Tex-Mex. I would’ve been mildly upset.”

Of course, I explained that much like in a democracy… you can’t complain if you don’t vote!

But she got lucky on this one.

I’ve made a tex-mex style stack before, but this one is a bit more themed around ingredients that normally go in a crunchy beef taco. It’s just layered instead of stuffed which makes it fun!

The Taco Stack

Yield: 4 Taco Stacks

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

12 corn tortillas, fried crispy
1/4 Cup vegetable oil, for frying tortillas

Beef Mixture:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Cup diced tomatoes
1 small can roasted green chilis
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
1 Teaspoon chili powder
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 Teaspoon cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt and pepper

2 avocados, mashed
2 Tablespoons cilantro, mashed with avocado
1/2 lime, juice only (for guac)
Chopped Lettuce
8 ounces pepper jack cheese, grated
Sour cream

Directions:

1) Add oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, add one tortilla at a time. Cook tortilla for 15 seconds and then flip. Cook for a total of 2-3 minutes until tortilla is slightly browned and crispy. Flip occasionally. Then let drain and cool on a paper towel. The tostada will continue to crisp up as it cools.

2) For beef mixture, add diced onion and garlic to a large skillet with a drizzle of oil. Cook over medium-high heat until veggies start to soften, about 3 minutes.

3) Add spices and continue to cook until fragrant, another 2-3 minutes.

4) Add beef and cook until well-browned. Then add chilis and tomatoes and continue to cook until tomatoes cook down, another 5 minutes or so.

5) Grate cheese, chop lettuce, and make quick guacamole.

6) Slather bottom tostada with guac and add a handful of lettuce. Add a second tostada, then cheese, beef, and more cheese. Top with final tostada and a dollop of sour cream.

Frying the Tostadas

You can buy pre-made tostadas in the store these days, but I still like to make my own. The pre-made ones are much thinner and therefore they get soggier and just don’t hold up as well to something like this.

Frying your own isn’t hard. Just add a good drizzle of oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, add a tortilla and let it sizzle for 15 seconds, then give it a flip to get both sides cooking. Cook tortillas for 2-3 minutes total, flipping occasionally.

Once the tortillas are done, let them drain on a paper towel briefly. As they cool, they will continue to crisp up.

Not too hard.

Cooking the Filling

I really don’t love pre-mixed taco seasonings, but you could definitely use one if you wanted. I’ve found a combination of spices that I think makes for a really delicious taco seasoning.

I sometimes play with it a bit, but it almost always has these four flavorful spices: cumin, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, and chili powder.

Spicy!

When you’re ready to cook the filling, add a drizzle of oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot add the onions and garlic and let them cook until they start to soften up, about 3 minutes.

Then add all of your spices and stir it all together. The spices will toast and become really fragrant as the onions continue to cook.

It’ll smell delicious.

Already smellin' good.

Add the ground beef to the onion mixture and continue to cook until the beef is well browned. Then stir in the green chilis and diced tomatoes.

Good flavors.

Stir this all together and cook for another 5 minutes or so until the tomatoes cook down and most of the liquid is out of the pan. Taste it and season with salt and pepper.

The Other Toppings

Since this is a taco after all, there are a few other ingredients that I consider to be essential: Grated cheese, lettuce, and guacamole.

For the guacamole, I went pretty minimalist here and just mashed up avocados and some diced cilantro and then added the juice of half a lime.

Guac is essential.

Making the stack

There’s nothing too scientific about the stack, and you could stack your ingredients in any order really, but I like this order.

Start with one tostada and slather on a good helping of guacamole. Then pile on some lettuce. The guacamole will help the lettuce stick around.

Straightforward.

Then add a second tostada followed by a handful of grated cheese.

Then top with your hot beef mixture and add another handful of cheese on top.

The hot beef will melt the cheeses and the middle tostada will keep any liquids from making the lettuce soggy.

My favorite layer.

Top with your final tostada and add a good dollop of sour cream and some extra cilantro if that’s your thing.

From the top!

Not only was this completely delicious but it also turned out to be a really pretty dish I think.

Well, pretty for a taco anyway.

It might seem like the best way to eat this is with a fork and knife, but Betsy and I discovered that the best way to eat it is to literally just pick it up and eat it with your hands.

The guacamole and melted cheese will keep everything together.

It’s a bit messy, but so is a taco so just go with it.

A thing of beauty!

Betsy has began expressing some frustration in my new work schedule. Not because I’m at home where I can cuddle with the manimals anytime I want, but mainly because it means that she occasionally misses out on brunch.

You see, I used to cook my weekend brunch posts the week before I would post them. Betsy and I would eat them together and they were generally some of her most favorite meals I think. Lately though, we’ve been traveling so much that I haven’t had a kitchen to use during the weekends! So I’ve been making my brunch dishes during the week, for lunch normally, and then posting them that weekend.

Betsy wasn’t happy about this scheduling change.

So this week, I actually woke up early one day and cooked her a proper breakfast.

This breakfast tostada set the world right again.

The Breakfast Tostada

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

4 corn tortillas, fried crispy
2 Tablespoons olive oil (for frying tortillas)
1 pound spicy sausage (chorizo for example)
1 avocado, mashed
1 Cup cheddar cheese, grated
A handful of spinach leaves
Cilantro
4 large eggs
1 Teaspoon of butter per egg (for frying)
Hot sauce

Directions:

1) Add a drizzle of oil to a large pan over medium-high heat. Add corn tortillas one at a time. Fry for 15 seconds on side one and then flip. Continue to fry (flipping occasionally) for another 2-3 minutes until tortilla is nice and crispy.

2) Remove tortilla to a plate with a paper towel to drain. Fry other tortillas and set aside.

3) Cook sausage in a large pan.

4) Mash guacamole with cilantro.

5) Spread guacamole on tostada. Top with spinach and sausage. Add grated cheese.

6) Fry egg in butter. Either over-easy or sunny-side up is a good option. You could also poach the egg for a slightly healthier option.

78) Top tostada with egg and garnish with hot sauce, cilantro, salt and pepper.

Making the Tostada

You can definitely buy the pre-made tostada crisps in the store, but I think it’s worth it to fry them yourself. For starters, it’s good to know how to fry up corn tortillas. Then you can make chips anytime you want (sweet heat chips anyone?).

More importantly though, the tostada just tastes a lot better coming out of the pan hot and crispy rather than coming out of a cold bag.

Corn works best.

Frying them is really straightforward. Just add a good drizzle of oil to a large pan and heat it over medium-high heat. Add your corn tortillas one at a time.

Fry each tortilla for about 15 seconds on side one, then flip it. Let them cook (flipping occasionally) for about 2-3 minutes until they are slightly browned and crispy.

These guys are all perfect.

Nice and crispy.

The toppings

There’s a huge number of toppings you could add to your tostada. Black beans would be nice for a vegetarian version, but I was in a sausage mood on this day so I just browned up some spicy sausage.

Any spicy sausage will work.

Betsy would probably leave me if I offered her a Tex-Mex dish without guacamole somehow incorporated. And rightfully so.

This was just a quick guacamole with mashed avocado and some cilantro. Nothing fancy.

Minimalist Guacamole.

Building the Tostada

This isn’t rocket science. The only tip I can give is to spread the guacamole right on the tostada first. It’ll act kind of like a glue and make sure everything else sticks nicely.

I added some fresh spinach on top of my guacamole, but that’s optional really.

Then I topped it with a heap of the sausage and some grated cheese. The heat from the sausage and the egg (coming soon) will melt the cheese.

Stackin' it up.

Once you get your tostada ready, it’s time to fry up an egg to top the thing.

This is a very important part of the dish in my opinion.

Add a small amount of butter to a small nonstick pan and melt it over medium heat. Then crack in your egg and let it cook for about a minute to 90 seconds until the white is mostly set. You could flip it and make the egg over-easy, but I went with the sunny-side up method for mine.

I like to slide a large plate over my pan for about 30 seconds near the end of the cooking process. That will set the whites on top of the egg but keep the yolk nice and yellow.

Most important.

Then just slide the egg right on top of the tostada.

Top with a good pinch of salt and pepper and any other garnishes you want like cilantro or hot sauce.

The egg is very important.

There’s some awesome flavors and textures going on in this dish. When you slice into the egg and the yolk spills over the crispy tostada (assuming you didn’t over-cook your egg), then you’ll be in brunch heaven.

This is also a perfect example of why it’s almost always worth waking up thirty minutes early to feed your loved ones a solid breakfast.

Happy wife. Happy life.

Pretty good taco.

As I mentioned in my hash brown benedict post on Saturday, Betsy and I had a few friends from the big city come visit a few weeks ago. This was a big deal. You can pretty much guarantee that if you fly 2,000 miles to visit me, I’ll cook you anything you want.

These friends were easy to please though. Besides brunch, they just asked for something Tex-mex and something grilled. So I decided to slam the two together and make some awesome grilled carnitas.

The benefits of grilling these guys (they are normally braised like this), is that you don’t have to turn your oven on! This might seem like a small win, but if you’re cooking something for 4-5 hours, it’s a big deal. Also, grilled things tend to taste good.

The downside of grilling these guys is that you want to cook them as low and slow as possible. So get ready for a day of cooking. I don’t really consider this a downside, but some people just might.

Grilled Carnitas

Yield: Serves 10.

Prep Time: 20 minutes + Resting Time

Total Time: 10 hours

Ingredients:

1 5 pound pork butt (shoulder) cut. If you get a full pork shoulder (~10 pounds) you can just cut it in half or do the whole thing if you need to feed a million people.
Flour Tortillas
1 Red onion
2 limes, juice only
1/3 Cup spice rub (below)
Salsa Verde (below or jarred is okay)
Cojita Cheese, crumbled
Radishes, sliced thin (optional)
Guacamole (below)

Spice Rub: Enough for a 5 pound pork butt
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 Tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 Tablespoon ground cumin

Salsa Verde:
1 pound tomatillos, halved
1/2 white onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic
2-3 jalapenos
1 lime, juice only
1 handful of cilantro
Pinch of salt

Basic Guacamole:
4 avocados, pitted
2 shallots, minced (you can also use red onion)
2 serrano peppers, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 handful cilantro, minced (optional)
1-2 limes, juice only
Pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Oven thermometer
Meat Thermometer
Blender (just for salsa)

Directions:

1) For rub, mix ingredients in a bowl.

2) Butterfly pork butt but leave a piece attached. Don't cut it completely in two. Cover entire butt with rub. Let sit overnight in the fridge.

3) Preheat grill to 250 degrees. Use an oven thermometer to ensure even temp.

4) Cook pork butt for 8-10 hours on grill, rotating every 2 hours.

5) Once butt hits 190-200 degrees, it's done. Then wrap in tin foil and let sit for 30-45 minutes.

6) Use two forks to shred pork butt into strips.

7) As an optional step, mix in 1/4 cup of melted butter in with pork and broil the meat for a few minutes on high to really crisp up the carnitas.

8) Serve with tortillas, guacamole, salsa, onions, cojita, and radishes.

Prepping the Carnitas

There were a lot of variables that went into this dish. Since it was my first time trying it, I decided to follow one of my basic cooking rules which is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, keep it as simple as possible.

That means that I didn’t get fancy with my rub, I didn’t use charcoal or try to smoke the shoulder in any way. My main goals were just to flavor it decently and cook it perfectly. And that’s what I did.

I kept my rub very simple with these guys.

Keep it simple.

I wanted to really maximize the surface area that the rub was on, so I decided to butterfly my shoulder a bit and really coat the entire thing in the rub.

If I would’ve had my way, I would’ve gone with a pork shoulder with the bone in, but the butcher was fresh out so I had to go with the boneless variety. Not a huge deal.

Really feel free to go heavy on the rub.

Butterflied and rubbed.

Now, you could throw this on the grill right away, but you’ll get a lot more flavor out of it if you can let it rest overnight – in the fridge of course.

This normally isn’t a huge deal because since it’s going to need to cook all day anyway, any prep you can do the night before is good.

Grilling the Butt

I’m not sure if you can tell from the photos, but this is a big hunk of meat. It weighed in at about 5 pounds and this was only half of the shoulder. I’d guess that most pork shoulders are 20-30% fat which really works to our advantage here. That means that we can cook it low and slow and the high fat content will make it almost impossible to over-cook.

What you don’t want to do is cook it on a grill that’s too hot. If you do that, you run the risk of completely charring the outside and leaving the inside really tough still. No good.

The only way to make sure your grill is the right temperature is to get yourself an oven thermometer and plop it down right on the grill. If you’re using a gas grill like me, it’s just a matter of playing around with your heat until you get a steady 250 degree heat.

For me, the setting that finally worked was to turn on only the very back fire element and turn it on its lowest setting. With the lid closed, the grill kept a steady 250-255 degree temperature.

The start of something beautiful.

One Note: If your grill has a built in thermometer, just ignore it. Those things are WAY off. Mine was registering 50-75 degrees off the entire cooking time.

One Other Note: If you’re using charcoal/wood, more power to you. I want to do my next one this way. You just have to be diligent about adding coals and keeping the temperature in a good range.

A five pound pork but will need about 9-10 hours on the grill. This was mine after about 6 hours.

I also turned my butt every two hours just to make sure it was cooking evenly.

A bit over halfway.

The Fixings

Ten hours is a long time. At some point during that time, you’ll want to make some good fixings for your tacos.

Guacamole never hurts and is a requirement at my house for any Tex-Mex dinner.

Essential.

I also decided to whip up a batch of salsa verde to go with the pork. I figured the slightly bitter salsa would go really well with the pork.

To make the salsa, just roast all the ingredients except the cilantro and limes for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Then blend them up and season with salt!

Feel free to use jarred stuff.

I also marinated some sliced red onions in a bit of lime juice, sliced some radishes thinly, and crumbled some cojita cheese. In my opinion, the radishes and cheese are optional, the onions are not!

Fun toppings.

Finishing the Carnitas

Let me warn you. When you are cooking five pounds of meat for an entire day, you need a meat thermometer.

You also need a lot of beer, but that’s neither here nor there.

The meat thermometer is really the only way to know when this guy is done. When it hits 190-200 degrees in the center, it’s done. That may seem really high, but that’s the temperature when all that fat is melting away, which is what you want.

Done deal!

When you pull your pork butt off the grill, it will be falling apart. Do your best to keep it in one piece and wrap the whole thing in foil. Let it sit for about 45 minutes. This will give it time to cool slowly so you can work with it. Trying to do anything with it when it comes off the grill is a recipe for second degree burns.

It’ll still be plenty hot after 45 minutes, but you should be able to easily handle it and pull it apart.

Fall-apart tender.

Grab a few forks and get to work shredding. The meat is so tender that it should be a pretty easy task.

Shred it, dude!

You can serve the tacos just like this if you want or you can take it to the next level!

If you want to kick it up a notch, melt about a 1/4 cup of butter and stir the melted butter into the carnitas. Then stick the whole thing under the broiler for about five minutes to get the carnitas extra crispy and delicious.

Not a necessary step at all, but it does add a nice touch if you have the time.

I don’t think I need to tell you how to make a taco. Just pile it high and deep!

The finished deal.

I’m not sure there’s much left to say about these guys. They turned out to be a lot easier to make than I thought they would be.

If you’re in a situation where you need to feed a small army, this is a fantastic way to go.

It should be no surprise that the leftovers make really good burritos or breakfast hash.

CHOMP!

The idea of a healthy burger might be a bit strange to some people, but that’s what Jamie Oliver tried to do in his recent season of Food Revolution: LA.

He worked with a local LA fast food joint to replace some of their unhealthy (but delicious looking) burgers on the menu with burgers that will hopefully be equally delicious but also healthier.

There were four burgers that he made on the show, but you guys voted for the Green Goddess burger so I did my best to recreate it!

It turned out really awesome although I’m not sure I mastered the health parts.

Green Goddess Burgers

Yield: 9 Burgers

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pounds ground beef. I recommend getting a chuck roast and grinding it yourself!
Buns

Green Goddess Sauce:
2 Cups Greek yogurt
1/2 lemon, juice only
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/3 Cup fresh parsley, minced
Pinch of salt and pepper

Basic Guacamole:
4 avocados
1-2 shallots, minced
1-2 jalapenos, seeded and minced
Handful fresh cilantro, minced
2 limes, juice only
Pinch of salt

Other burger toppings:
Grilled onions
Sprouts
Roasted red peppers

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor or Meat Grinder

Directions:

1) For green goddess sauce, mix ingredients in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Can be made in advance.

2) For guacamole, dice ingredients finely and mix.

3) For burgers, separate meat and fat on chuck roast. Grind or process fat until it's finely ground into a paste.

4) Remove fat and grind/process meat. Don't overprocess meat.

5) Stir meat and fat together or send them through the grinder together.

6) Make 9 1/3 pound burgers. Season well with salt and pepper.

7) Grill burgers over high heat for 4-5 minutes per side.

Making the Burgers

Now you could definitely just use normal hamburger meat for these guys, but in the Food Revolution spirit, I thought it would be good to grind my own meat.

Also, I think you can get a lot better flavor by grinding your own. Remember that most ground beef you buy at the store is just scraps.

So you can do a lot better for not a lot of money by getting a nice chuck roast and doing it yourself.

There are burgers in there...

To do this right, step one is cutting out most of the fat from the roast. This takes some patience, but you should be able to cut off the large pieces of meat and then slice off the layers of fat.

It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Once you have most of your fat cut off, send it through your grinder or pulse it in a food processor until it’s basically a paste.

The reason you want to do the fat separately is because you want the fat to have a finer texture than the meat.

The fat stuff.

Then take out the fat and grind the meat. If you’re using a food processor, be careful not to over-process the meat or you’ll have a paste instead of ground beef.

Then you can mix the fat and meat together! If you’re a perfectionist, you could weigh the fat and meat and make sure that you are getting about 20% fat which is what I like to use in my burgers.

I think I over-shot the fat content a bit in this round (so much for healthy). I probably had closer to 30% fat. Oh well!

Maybe a bit too much fat!

Three pounds of chuck roast should make about nine burgers. I like to make mine about 1/3 of a pound. Just shape them lightly with your hands and try not to press down on the burgers too much.

Season them all really well with salt and pepper.

Looking good!

The Green Goddess Sauce

In the show, Jamie slathers his burger with some sort of yogurt-based sauce. It’s kind of hard to see what’s going on there, but I had to guess, so I went with these things:

Making a green goddess.

Mixed all together they make a great creamy sauce that takes the place of cheese on the burger. You can make this in advance if you want. It’s better on day two actually.

Tasty stuff.

Guacamole

The second topping for the burger is just my standard guacamole recipe. Guacamole on a burger is one of those fantastic combinations that once you have once, you’ll want it every time.

These days, I don’t really make a small amount of guacamole. Whatever doesn’t go on the burgers can go on chips!

Artsy avocado shot....

When making guacamole, just be sure to dice all your ingredients well. It’s never good to get a huge bite of jalapeno or something.

Other than that though, just mix everything together! The lime juice is really important as the acid will keep the guacamole nice and green.

You can never have too much.

Cooking the Burgers

Obviously, the best thing to do is grill the burgers. If you don’t have a grill though, you could definitely do these in a pan also.

Grill them over high heat for 4-5 minutes per side for a medium burger and be ready for some serious flare-ups, especially if you have 30% fat like mine were…

One of my favorite things.

Once the burgers are done, slather one side of the bun with the green goddess dressing and the other side with guacamole.

This one I kept pretty standard, but feel free to spruce it up with sprouts, grilled onions, or red peppers also.

Really good.

I’m not entirely sure that my version ended up being much healthier than a normal burger, but I did use a whole wheat bun. So I get some points, people!

In all seriousness though, it’s a delicious burger and very different than anything you’ll find at a fast food place which is the point!

It's a dip. It's a soup.

What’s the difference between a soup and a dip?

If you think about it, not a whole lot. They are both thick liquids. Both can be either warm or cold. You can eat dips with a spoon and soups with bread.

Of course there are some dips that are probably not a very good fit for a soup. Anything with a ton of sour cream in it comes to mind because it’s generally not seen as a good idea to eat sour cream with a spoon.

But guacamole? I knew that this would be on the fence. It’s mostly a dip, but if it’s lightened up a bit with some other add-ins it works perfectly as a soup also!

Guacamole Soup

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes + 1 hour to chill

Ingredients:

2 large, ripe avocados
1/2 red onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1-2 chipotle peppers
1 lime, juice only
1/2 Cup ice cold water
1 1/2 - 2 Cups plain yogurt
1/4 Cup cilantro
Pinch of salt and cumin
Tortilla chips (for serving)
Salsa (for serving)

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor

Directions:

1) Roughly chop onions and mince garlic. Combine in a food processor with avocado, lime juice, chipotle peppers, salt and cumin.

2) Pulse until smooth.

3) Add yogurt, cilantro, and water and mix together until combined.

4) Chill soup for at least an hour.

5) Serve with tortilla chips and salsa.

Adapted from a Self.com recipe.

Basic Guacamole

This recipe really has all the same ingredients I use for my standard guacamole recipe. The one change is using red onion instead of shallot. That’s a pretty small change though and honestly, you can sub those two things pretty interchangeably.

Hard to go wrong here...

Picking ripe avocados is pretty important for this recipe. You want them to be soft and creamy so they blend easily. Look for ones that give a bit to pressure, but avoid any that are super-mushy.

The closest comparison I can think of is that you want avocados that have the give of a racquetball. If they feel like a baseball, they aren’t ripe, if they feel like a Nerf ball, they’re probably rotten!

When you slice them open, you’ll hopefully see some nice green flesh that’s soft enough to spoon out.

I'm a good avocado picker!

Add the onions, garlic, avocado, spices, and chipotle peppers to a food processor and pulse it until it’s smooth. I don’t think this is a soup recipe that you could make without a food processor or a blender. You need something to really pulse the ingredients to make it smooth.

I think a food processor works a bit better in this case just because it’s a thicker soup.

Looks weird. Smells good!

As an aside, if you were to stop right here, you’d have a pretty solid guacamole that’s got a much softer texture than most guacamole.

Lightening the Guac

We are at the dip phase now and to get to the soup phase we need to lighten the flavors up. Yogurt is perfect for this. It keeps the texture smooth, but lightens the flavors a bit.

I also added about 1/2 Cup of plain ice water to really thin the soup some. Without this water, I think we’d be still firmly in the dip territory.

Cilantro adds some good freshness to the soup, but you can leave it out if you’re a cilantro hater.

Some good add ins.

Pulse this until everything is mixed together well and is nice and smooth.

Taste it for salt and add a bit more if necessary.

Silky smooth!

Serving the Soup

Be sure to chill this soup before serving it for at least an hour. In that hour the flavors will really start to combine as well which is nice.

Serve the soup with a lot of chips and some salsa on top.

You'll need more than six chips...

I would alternate between dipping and eating with a spoon and both were very tasty. The avocados have such a creamy texture, it almost reminded me of a queso dish but there’s no cheese in it at all.

I think the chipotle peppers are pretty essential to give the soup some nice heat and flavor.

I thought that I wouldn’t be able to eat a whole bowl of this, thinking it would be too heavy, but it wasn’t a problem at all.

I should’ve guessed this though considering that I can eat as much guacamole as you put in front of me!

Gooood tacos.

There comes a point in every home cook’s life where you are faced with feeding more people than your kitchen might normally accommodate. This could be a holiday party or a birthday thing, or it could just be because you happen to be super-duper popular.

There are some meals that absolutely are a bad idea for this kind of thing. Any dish that you have to individually cook is bad. Anything with a lot of steps is worse. Anything that requires a lot of primping or careful watch is definitely out.

Enter taco night.

It’s probably the best way that I can think of to happily feed a huge amount of people with as little stress as possible. For a recent taco night I hosted, I made three different things for the meal including some really killer tacos. I thought I’d take a post and take you all through the process!

The key to a low-stress taco night is splitting up your work. So ideally you have some pieces that you can do a day or two before, some stuff you can make earlier in the day, and not much that you need to do when people arrive.

My do ahead dish for this taco night was a simple and fresh corn and black bean salad!

Corn and Black Bean Salad
Serves 10-15 people plus you’ll probably have leftovers.

- 4 ears of fresh sweet corn, cut off the cob
- 2 cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 red onion, diced
- 1 green pepper, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 3 limes, juice only
- 1/4 Cup cilantro, chopped (optional)
- 1-2 jalapenos, minced (optional)
- 1 Tablespoon fresh tarragon, minced (optional)
- Salt and pepper

A simple salsa

Making the salad. There’s not much to know about this salad other than the fact that it’s amazing. It does take some time to chop up all the stuff, but that’s why it’s a great thing to do the day before the taco night. Plus, that gives it a day to chill in the fridge. The flavors only become better.

One tip for cutting the corn off the cob is to do it with the ear standing upright in a large bowl. Then as you slice the corn off it falls in the bowl rather than scattering all over the counter.

Then just slice and dice all your other stuff and mix it together! If you wanted to add some heat to the salad, be sure to dice up a jalapeno or two also.

Taste this as you go and adjust the flavors and season with salt and pepper.

Dicin' and mixin'

So you can serve this as a side salad or with chips. It’s great no matter what and leftovers keep for at least a week.

The Guac. If you’re hosting a legit taco night, you need to make some serious guacamole. Now, I’ve made a few versions of guacamole over the years, but the crowd said that this was one of the best guacs they’ve had.

We destroyed this stuff.

Real Deal Guacamole
Serves 10 if you’re lucky.

- 6 avocados
- 2-3 shallots, minced
- 3 serrano peppers, minced
- 2 ripe tomatoes, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 Cup cilantro, minced (optional for cilantro haters)
- 2 limes, juice only
- Salt and pepper

This is really basic stuff, but one of the important things about guac is to make sure you dice up all your ingredients evenly. Big chunks of stuff isn’t really good.

Also, I find it easier to chop up everything but the avocado, like this:

Real guacamole making.

And then mix in all the avocados!

Some of the best I've made.

I wouldn’t make the guac the day before, but you can definitely make it an hour or two before. Once it’s mixed, just lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the top (so the plastic is on the guacamole) to keep it from browning and store it in the fridge until you need it.

The main event. Ok. So if you’re a really dedicated Macheesmo reader, these tacos might look familiar to you. That’s because I’ve made them before.

They are my yam, poblano, and chorizo tacos. I’m posting them again because they work great for a taco night. They are kind of unique, but also because they are some of the best tacos I’ve had and you should probably make them.

Yammy Chorizo Tacos (taken from Bon Appètit)
Serves 10.

2 pounds chorizo, out of casing
3 large yam or sweet potato
4 poblano peppers
2 large red onion
3 lime (just the juice)
Flour tortillas
Cotija (or feta) Cheese
Kosher salt

Killer taco stuff.

Prepping for the tacos. Again, you can do some of the prep work for these tacos way before people even arrive. One thing you can do is peel all the yams (or they are sometimes labeled sweet potatoes in the states) and dice them into matchsticks.

I usually go for about the length of my pinkie finger. You can also chop up the poblano peppers into the same size pieces.

Take your time here.

The only other thing you can do prior to guests arriving is making the pickled red onions for the tacos. Just slice two red onions really thinly and combine them with the juice from a few limes and a good pinch of salt. Put those in a plastic container and give them a good shake and store them in the fridge until you need them. You could make these a day in advance without a problem.

For those keeping track, that means before anyone has even arrived we have the corn salad done. The guacamole is made and ready. The yams and poblano peppers are in matchsticks ready for the tacos and the red onions are pickling in lime juice.

There’s almost nothing to do at this point.

The only thing you need to do is cook the chorizo. To do this, just remove all the chorizo from the casing and cook it in your largest pan over high heat. Cook it until it’s well browned and smells delicious. Like this:

This will smell awesome.

Next, remove your chorizo from the pan, but don’t rinse the pan! Use all that oil from the chorizo and add your matchsticked veggies to the pan.

Cook the matchsticks until they are tender but not soft. Add a bit of neutral oil if they look dry. Try not to overcook the veggies or they just become soggy. About five minutes should be more than enough.

Then add all your chorizo back to the pan (you need a big pan), and your tacos are ready to go!

Then you can kind of set up an assembly line with tortillas, the filling, the pickled onions, and some crumbled cheese and you’ll look like a party genius.

The start of the assembly line.

I think I fed 10 people with this meal and barely broke a sweat because I had done almost everything before anyone even arrived.

SO I was able to relax, have a beer, and a few tacos of course.

Just the best taco you'll ever eat.

I didn’t have any vegetarians at this dinner which made my life easier, but if I did I would’ve just cooked up some mushrooms or crumbled tofu and used that with some spices (cayenne, paprika, cumin) instead of the chorizo for a taco filling.

So if you need to feed a lot of people and are stressing…

Look to the taco dinner.

Love the taco dinner.

Lots of chopping, but worth it.

I was strolling through the farmer’s market a few weeks ago and there was this stall that had really nice, fresh tomatillos and right next to it they were selling bags of assorted peppers. They were basically begging me to buy both, chop them up, season it, and put it on a chip.

I was a bit worried that this would be too bitter as tomatillos can be kind of bitter, but it was actually nice. It was a lot different than a normal pico de gallo recipe, but sometimes different is good!

Pico de Gallo Verde

Yield: 2-3 cups

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound tomatillos, diced
2 jalapenos
Assorted peppers. I used a poblano, some red peppers, and a few peppers that I have no idea what they are called
2-3 cloves garlic
1 lime, juice only
Salt and pepper
2 Avocados (for a guacamole that's out of this world)

Directions:

1) Wash everything, dice it up, and add it to a bowl with the lime juice and a pinch of salt.

2) Make a fantastic guacamole by mushing up two avocados and mixing in a good amount of the pico de gallo.

The Tomatillos

These are strange little things. If you’ve never worked with them before they come with a almost papery wrapper around them. They’re also a bit sticky.

Kind of weird.

Strange fruit.

Tomatillos have two main traits to them: they’re crunchy and they’re bitter. Both of these work great in a salsa luckily.

Once you get all the paper wrappers off of the tomatillos, they’re actually easier to chop than tomatoes because they hold together nicely.

I was skeptical that this would work.

If you wanted I guess you could put everything in a food processor, but I decided to just chop everything by hand. I wanted to make sure I had a nice chunky texture to it and sometimes I have a heavy hand with the food processor and end up with more of a paste than a salsa.

It doesn’t take long to dice up the tomatillos though.

This needs some help.

The Peppers

I’m very serious when I say that the stand at the farmer’s market was just selling bags of random peppers. I could identify some of them, but some were a mystery to me. No matter what though, I knew they’d be great in a salsa.

Assorted delicious peppers.

Anytime you’re using peppers that you don’t know, I really recommend trying a very tiny (very tiny!) bite of them raw. You want to make sure that your end result isn’t too hot to eat or not hot enough. I tried every single one of these peppers and there was luckily a really nice mix of hot ones and mild ones. So I just used all of them!

If you aren’t lucky enough to find a random assortment of peppers, you can use your favorite from the store. I recommend getting some different colors and heat levels just for a good mix.

I chopped up some garlic also.

You could go with crushed if that's your thing.

One key to remember about peppers: If you use the seeds and white interior parts of the peppers, your end salsa will be much spicier. So if you want to cut down the heat, take out the seeds and white interior part. Again, I went the moderate route here and seeded some of my peppers but left the seeds in some as well.

Add some lime juice and salt and you’re all set!

All in the bowl!

This pico had a serious bite to it, but I really liked it. It got even better on day two once all the flavors melded even more.

Sexy chip shot.

The thing about this pico is that it’s difficult to eat a lot of it because the tomatillos are almost aggressively bitter. I like that kind of thing, but it might be too much for some people.

The solution to this bitter problem (if it’s a problem for you) is to mix in some of this pico into 2 mushed avocados. The creaminess from the avocados cuts the bitterness of the tomatillos perfectly. I didn’t photograph it, but this stuff made some of the best guacamole I’ve ever had.

At the end of the day, it’s really hard to go wrong with fresh pico de gallo. It’s the perfect thing for a summer day.

Fish good. Pickled onions. Excellent.

Tacos need a revamp in America. Well, okay. A lot of food does, but tacos are the subject at hand. I think when most people think of tacos they imagine a cheesy, beefy situation that’s piled high with lettuce. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that on occasion but trust me when I say that it’s not the best taco.

It’s good, but you can do better.

And here’s the revamp that I’m proposing, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this: Kill the cheese.

A good taco doesn’t need cheese and in fact it can kind of get in the way if you use the wrong kind. Sometimes it’s good to go cheeseless.

These fish tacos are a perfect example. There’s only three parts to these tacos and adding cheese to them I just don’t think would get you anywhere.

Fish Tacos

Yield: Serves 8.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

8 fillets of catfish (about a pound), or a pound of any flaky white fish. Cod would work.
8 tortillas, I think flour worked best
2 avocados
Handful of cilantro
2 limes
1 red onion, sliced thinly
1 jar of pickled jalapenos
Semolina flour or cornmeal for frying
Canola or peanut oil for frying

Helpful Equipment:
Cast Iron Skillet

Directions:

1) Slice red onion really thin and mix with brine from jalapenos and a handful or two of the chopped jalapenos. Mix with the lime juice and a pinch of salt and let marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

2) For guacamole, mix avocados and chopped cilantro (a few tablespoons) with the juice of 1/2 a lime. Don'ot make this too far in advance.

3) Put a thin layer of oil (maybe 1/4 inch thick) of oil in a cast iron skillet and get it going on high heat.

4) Dredge your fish in semolina flour or cornmeal.

5) Fry fish for about 3 minutes per side until lightly brown. Remove and let drain on a paper towel.

6) Heat tortillas for a minute or two in a 300 degree oven.

7) Assemble tacos and eat!

Pickled Onions

My favorite part to these tacos was actually this really simple pickled onion mixture. You could make your own pickling mixture, but I just bought a jar of pickled jalapenos and used the juice from that along with some lime to lightly pickle the onions. It provided a real flavor punch to the tacos.

Basic stuff, but really tasty.

Slice your onions as thin as you can and mix them with about 1/2 Cup of juice from the jarred jalapenos as well as a few handfuls of jalapenos. Add the juice of a lime and a pinch of salt and mix this all together.

This is best if it sits for a few hours before serving. I just mixed everything up in a plastic container and stored it in the fridge until I needed it.

Just a few hours...

The Guacamole

The guacamole for these tacos is really simple, but it’s important. It adds a creamy texture to the tacos which is a good texture paired with the crispy fried fish and crunchy onions.

Just mix together the avocados, some chopped cilantro (maybe 2 tablespoons) and a juice of 1/2 a lime.

You'll want this.

The Fish

I used these perfect little catfish fillets I found. Each one weighs about 1/10 of a pound. They are a lot thinner than they look. They were perfect size for a taco.

If you can’t find any catfish that looks good, you can use any white fish. Just cut it into strips that would be good taco-stuffing size.

This are really thin actually. Perfect taco fillings.

All I did to prep my fish was to dunk them in some semolina flour (cornmeal would also be good). It’s a very light coating, but I thought it was perfect. You don’t want anything too heavy for these tacos.

I think semolina was a good choice.

I added a small amount of canola oil to my cast iron skillet and got the oil hot. Once the oil is hot, fry a few fillets at a time. Due to how thin they are these fried really fast. About 3 minutes a side was all it took for mine.

You really don’t need that much oil for these. I would guess maybe I used 1.5 Cups.

As with anything you fry, don’t over-fill the pan. The fish shouldn’t be touching other fillets.

Just a few minutes per side.

The Tortillas

I tried two different kinds of tortilla for my version: Blue corn and flour. I must say that for these, I thought the flour was a better choice.

I’d recommend heating up your tortillas by wrapping them in foil and sticking them in a 300 degree oven for a few minutes.

Use your favorite.

I think you can see pretty clearly how to assemble these guys: Guacamole, fish, onions.

I really dug these things.

Delicious.

So there ya go. A cheese-less taco that I guarantee won’t have you missing the cheese.

Like I said though, the pickled onions were my favorite part. I want to just keep a jar of those on hand for everything I eat.

Have you had fish tacos before? Favorite fish for them? Leave a comment!

I had in my mind what I thought was an awesome idea for a quesadilla (which won last week’s poll by a hair). My idea was to turn the traditional French dish of Ratatouille into a quesadilla. I thought this was a grand idea and I moved full-steam ahead.

The end result was actually delicious!

You can't see it, but there are pretty layers in there.

The problem was that it required a bit more work than what most people are probably willing to do to produce a simple quesadilla. You’ll see what I mean…

Warning: If you’re French, you might want to stop reading because it’s possible I demolished this dish.

Ratatouille Quesadilla

Yield: 4 quesadillas

Prep Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

Ingredients:

2 baby eggplants, sliced thin
1 medium zucchini, sliced thin
1 medium squash, sliced thin
1 red pepper, sliced thin
1 poblano pepper, sliced thick. Just kidding, sliced thin.
1 Cup tomato sauce
1 Tablespoon Herbs de Provence (optional)
Pinch of salt and pepper
Drizzle of olive oil
2 Cups pepper jack cheese or other spicy cheese
8 Tortillas
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Toppings for quesadilla: sour cream (or greek yogurt), salsa, guacamole, etc.

Helpful Equipment:
Mandoline. If you don't have one, this would be pretty awesome knife practice!

Directions:

1) Slice the squash, zucchini, eggplant, and peppers very thinly with a mandoline or with solid knife skills.

2) Put a thin layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a baking dish and stack the vegetables in the pan sitting on their edge.

3) Stack until you've used all your veggies. Sprinkle with Herbs de Provence (or your other favorite herbs) and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.

4) When the veggies are done, let them cool for a bit.

5) Layer cheese and as much veggies as you can take between two flour tortillas and bake on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for 7-8 minutes and then flip and bake for the same time on the second side.

6) Top with guacamole, sour cream, hot sauce, or salsa. Serve immediately!

Making the Ratatouille

Ok. There are a lot of way to make this dish. Traditionally, the veggies are lightly fried first, then layered with sauce and baked. Currently, one of the more popular methods of making the dish was popularized by the movie “Ratatouille” which one of my friends (Hi Mike) claims is one of the Top 5 Movies OF ALL TIME.

That method of making the dish is traditionally called a Confit Byaldi which was popularized by Mr. Keller. I used pretty standard ingredients in mine except I threw in a poblano pepper mainly because I was making quesadillas and I thought it would give it some Tex-Mex flare.

I love baby eggplants.

The key to a good ratatouille (in my mind anyway) is to have evenly-sized, thinly sliced veggies so they cook evenly and identically. Can you do this with a knife? OF COURSE.

But if you happen to have one, now would be the perfect time to pull out your mandoline slicer which makes short work of things like this.

I love my mandoline more!

It took me about 20 seconds to dice up this zucchini for example into almost perfectly uniform little rounds.

Thin is key people.

And the peppers were just as fast!

Nice and thin.

This Is the Part Where I’m Ridiculed

You might know where this is going, but allow me too explain. You see, I wanted my ratatouille to look like the ratatouille in, well, Ratatouille. I didn’t have an exact recipe for this, but I knew it involved very carefully layering your ingredients and baking them.

So I added a bit of tomato sauce in a baking dish, and started layering!

Pull up a chair. This could take awhile.

Looks pretty right?!

It took me about 10 or 15 minutes to make this beauty of a dish.

Colorful at least!

It, of course, then dawned on me that after these are done baking, I’m going to just rip them all up and stuff everything between two tortillas so I could’ve just roasted them in any darn fashion I wanted.

But the layers were so pretty! I couldn’t help myself.

However you decide to roast them, don’t forget to layer the tomato sauce under the veggies and sprinkle on your herbs if you’re using them. These add some awesome flavor to the veggies.

Herbage.

Roast these guys in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. That might seem like a long time but there’s a ton of water in these veggies and you want it to cook out or you’ll just end up with soggy quesadillas later.

They look and smell great when they come out though.

60 minutes in the oven people.

Cooking the Quesadilla

I like to bake my quesadillas in the oven at about 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes and flip them halfway through.

Basically just pile as much cheese and veggies as you can handle in between two flour tortillas. I also added a sprinkle of cayenne pepper which was complete overkill because I was using really spicy Habanero cheddar cheese.

This was actually really spicy.

Half way through cooking, use a big spatula (or slide the quesadilla onto a plate) and give it a flip!

Nice and crispy.

After the cheese is melted and the tortilla is crispy, it’s done! I always cut mine up with a pizza cutter and serve it with lots of toppings.

With necessary quesadilla toppings.

At the end of the day, this quesadilla was completely delicious. The summer veggies were a perfect addition. It’s also a good idea to cut the veggies thin like that and roast them because it gets out extra moisture and intensifies the flavors. All good things for a quesadilla.

But, like I said, if you aren’t going to serve it all pretty then there is no real reason to layer it all pretty. Just get the things roasted!

Now, you could of course eat this as a very nicely presented ratatouille over rice or pasta on night one and then turn the leftovers into a quesadilla on day two… I’m just trying to justify the pretty layering here people.