Mucho Macho Nacho

I love nachos. Stella loves nachos. Everyone loves nachos. These are my nachos, the ones I make on a weekly basis especially during football season. Because of Stella and my varying love of the spicy heat I have to make them half and half. But nachos are a pleasing meal for everyone.

It really is a simple meal to put together. I fry up about a pound of ground chuck, some yellow onion and one diced jalapeno and once the hamburger is brown I put in some Vard mexican seasoning and a 1/4 cup of water and let it simmer (if you want some extra protein mix in a can of black beans). You can use the packets of mexican seasoning you buy at the grocery or Penzey's Mexican seasoning, we just prefer a freshly made mix.

I use to use the whole sheet pan to line up the chips (You've got to use some thick chips, we use On the Border chips) but now I like to stack and make a little volcano out of them. Once I have a nice bottom layer of chips I cover them with about half the meat mixture. Then on my side of the nachos I sprinkle one diced jalapeno*. Then sprinkle on some diced tomato and cover the layer with about 2 cups of a cheddar colby jack mix of cheese. Then repeat with another full layer of chips, meat, 'penos, 'matoes and cheese. If you have some green onion now's the time to chop some up and sprinkle it on top with any leftover jalapenos and tomatoes.

*For you people that are from KC, I'd like to inform you that if you go to a grocery store anywhere south of KC, jalapenos are fresh and plentiful. It really is a disgrace what kind of jalapeno selection we can get in the grocery store in KC. Jalapenos are not supposed to be soft and wrinkly like XO's penis.

You pop that in a 350 degree oven and wait. Once all the cheese is melted in the middle pull them out. In the Vard household we have what we call "nacho spoon" to scoop out servings of nachos (in reality "nacho spoon" is an old slotted spoon that came with a Fry Daddy I bought in college). You pile a glob of sour cream on your plate and eat away. It's a fine meal, not particularly healthy, but a fine meal especially when you consider it costs about $5 to make.

I made a batch for my fantasy football draft this year and used 4 jalapenos and 2 serranos. That was the hottest batch I've made, I was sweating all through the draft. It was worth it since I won my league again, the second year in a row. Sometimes you get a real hot batch of jalapenos and your nachos turn your mouth to fire, it's fun to find out. When you use fresh ingredients you can't be sure of what their taste is going to be.