Irish Nachos and Arizona Dreaming

Traditional Nachos

The husband makes the most amazing nachos.  I’m surprised that I haven’t blogged about them before.  I usually make taco meat using ground beef or ground turkey with lots of spices, mainly chili powder.  The husband puts Santitos corn chips in a casserole dish. (Santitos are the best because a whole bag only costs $2!)  Then I sprinkle the meat on the top and he dumps cheese on top of it and repeat.  He is in charge of the cheese because I never seem to put enough.  My version is usually super crunchy and seems to cool off way too quickly whereas his version is super gooey and steamy hot delicious.

But now I too can make super gooey and steamy hot delicious nachos!  I found a recipe on Pinterest called “Irish Nachos” and the name was so intriguing that I had to take a look.  The pictures were even more intriguing than the name  - generous dollops of guacamole were definitely enough to make me save the recipe to one of my many boards for later cooking.  Unfortunately, I’ve only admired the pictures until now.  Something possessed the husband and me to buy a big bag of avocados at Costco and they were ripening faster than we could eat them.  Enter the perfect opportunity to make these so called Irish Nachos.

Now what makes them Irish?  Irish and Nachos are not two words that I would normally pair together.   The difference between Irish and regular nachos should actually be pretty obvious.  Instead of corn chips, the recipe calls for potatoes!  (I’m sure that this recipe didn’t actually originate in Ireland, but it is a cute play on the concept of nachos.)  I must say that this slight starch exchange makes a huge difference.  There was no chance of too crispy nachos with this one. 

First, the potatoes are roasted in olive oil and sprinkled with spices.  I took a slight detour from the spices that the recipe called for.  Instead of simply using paprika, I used Penzey’s Arizona Dreaming.   I don’t normally use ready-made spice mixes because I think it is more cost effective and even more creative to make my own.  However, I made an exception for Arizona Dreaming because my mom gave it to me.  How could I say no to my mom?  And more importantly, how could I say no to free?!  The label said the mix contained,“ancho chili pepper, black pepper, onion, garlic, paprika, spices, cumin, citric acid, Mexican oregano, cilantro, lemon peel, chipotle pepper, red pepper, jalapeño, cocoa and natural smoke flavoring” – just the kick that I thought Irish Nachos would need. I could be wrong, but I don’t think the Irish are known for creating especially spicy foods and Nachos are a dish that I believe should have some spice to them.  So, I followed the recipe and added the garlic even though the mix may have had a bit in it.

Irish Nachos 

After the potatoes had roasted, I added the bell pepper and onion that had been sauted and then dumped cheese on the top of the entire mixture and put it all back in the oven for the cheese to melt.  When I could see more gooey cheese than potato, I took them out of the oven.  I then crumbled turkey bacon over the top of the steamy hot concoction and then made guacamole out the avocados that had initially inspired me to make this dish.  I didn’t use the recipe for the “mashed avocado” listed on the recipe’s directions though.  Instead, I used a family recipe, one that has been around forever - at least one whole generation - a recipe that is so simple that I won’t bore you with the ingredients.  But now that you know it is a secret, I bet you want to know what it is!  My lips are sealed!

Because I used Arizona Dreaming, I had high expectations for the flavor of these nachos.  I expected it to taste like a sunset.  I’m not sure what a sunset would taste like, but my imagination tells me it would have warm, rich flavors – mixing the deep reds of chili powder and paprika with the lighter oranges and yellows of garlic and onion and just a tinge of blue-green; the blue-green that makes you question what blue-green really looks like, let alone tastes like, the question that keeps you questioning, and keeps you wondering, keeps you eating and tasting, and keeps you living.  OK, so maybe my expectations were too high.  Maybe I should have added a little more Arizona Dreaming to the Irish Nachos.  After all, Arizona is 4,843 miles from Ireland and while the flavors weren’t that far away from each other, they could have been better.

New Mexico Sunrise

The potatoes don’t have as much salt as the corn chips and it didn’t help the taste that I forgot to sprinkle salt and pepper on the potatoes before roasting them.  The Irish Nachos fell a bit short of the husband’s delicious traditional nachos, our very own New Mexico Dreaming sunrise. (Who needs to taste a sunset when we could taste a sunrise?)  New Mexico is a few hundred miles closer to Ireland than Arizona and I believe the blue-greens in the sunsets are brighter, more robust.  Perhaps it is the green chile?

The husband said it best, “I think we could play with this recipe.”  I think he is right.  I am looking forward to trying it with some green chile or maybe using a green chile infused oil instead of olive oil for roasting the potatoes in addition to the Arizona Dreaming.  Maybe Nachos will be a culinary experiment, our very own trendy fusion of foods: Ireland meets the Southwest.