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.

The Uncrowned Royal Burger

I had my cholesterol tested for the very first time.  I got up super early to be at the lab when it opened, so that there wouldn’t be a line but more importantly so that I wouldn’t have to extend my 10 hour fast to the time while I was actually awake.  The doctor recommended that I have it tested not because she thought that there was a problem, just because it was time to have it tested.  Seems to be a trend, I guess.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with precaution and why not be precautionary when the test is so simple: fast for 10 hours, have a bit of blood drawn, and be on your way.  Now I wait for the results.

While waiting, I decided to try something new, something so completely high in cholesterol that my doctor’s eyes would probably pop out of her head if she knew about it.  I ordered the Royal Red Robin Burger at where else but…… Red Robin.  Upon ordering, the waiter said “Mmmmm…the Royal” as if he were really speaking about royalty.  Was this burger going to be served with a crown of jewels on the top of it?  And should I only speak in hushed tones when gazing upon it?

Unlike me, the husband is trying to make healthy choices and ordered a chicken sandwich – not just any chicken sandwich; it was drenched in barbeque sauce and covered in fried onions, so I’m not sure how we’re measuring healthy choices these days.  Instead of the waiter that took our order, the manager brought our food to us.    He asked, “Who has the Royal?” as he tried to set it in front of my husband.  When I said that it was mine, he looked taken aback.  Who knew someone could look taken aback over a hamburger!?  But then it is the royalty of hamburgers, so maybe I should be so surprised at this reaction. “Oh!  Usually it is the opposite,” he paused and looked at me, “Usually the…” he looked at me again “orders the chicken,” awkward pause, “Good for you!” he smiled jovially and walked away.  I immediately said to the husband, “It looks like I’m the pig in this relationship!” and then we dug in happy to be eating and happy to not really think about cholesterol or healthy choices, just good tasting food.

The Royal Burger is like having breakfast on a hamburger.  It consists of a hamburger patty, American cheese, and is topped off with bacon and an egg.  I normally like food completely cooked, so I ordered the burger with “no pink” and requested that the egg be cooked over easy rather than sunny side up.

The taste of the burger was definitely not worth hushed tones and certainly didn’t make me want to bow down to it.  It was just a burger with an egg on it, a breakfast hamburger.  I’m glad that I ordered the egg over easy because it was still runny and a bit messy.  I must admit that I tend to turn into Sally from the movie “When Harry met Sally” in restaurants.  I don’t actually order everything on the side, but I tend to disassemble my food when it arrives so that everything is eventually on the side.  This way I can reassemble however I want. 

Upon delivery, I immediately removed the bun, so that probably contributed to the mess the egg made.  Once the yolk was consumed (most of it had stuck to the bread) I was left with the egg white, which tasted fine maybe a bit bland except for the added salt and pepper. It added a strange, rubbery texture to the familiar hamburger patty though.  I added lettuce and tomato and the juiciness of the tomato helped meld the flavors.  However, it was the cheese that surprisingly stood out in this burger.  I normally don’t care for cheese that much, but this was delicious.  Maybe I am a fan of the cheese burger after all!

While I wouldn't crown this burger or award it any titles of royalty, it was definitely worth trying before I know whether or not I should be eating hamburgers at all.  In the future, if hamburgers are indeed in my future, I will stick with the guacamole bacon burger instead.  We will not even consider a future without bacon.