Revenge is a Dish Best Served with Cheese

Revenge is the name we have given our version of Loaded Nachos. Why Revenge? Many moons ago Kristen’s sister made us a recipe called Southwest Fiesta, lots of it. By the 3rd or 4th day of leftovers we started calling it “Fiesta, The Revenge” like it was a movie sequel. From there it just became Revenge, and even though we changed many of the ingredients the name just stuck.

This is one of those recipes you can’t do wrong. You can vary any of the ingredients to suit your own tastes but this is our favorite.

Revenge (or Loaded Nachos) Recipe

1lb lean ground beef
1lb monterey jack cheese
1lb extra sharp cheddar cheese
1 can black kidney beans
1 can corn niblets
1 can diced tomatoes
1 jar salsa
1 medium onion
A smidgeon of vegetable oil
salt
pepper
chili powder
Large bag of sturdy tortilla chips
Sour cream

Dice up the onion. Add the smidgeon of oil to a large frying pan and heat under a medum flame. Add the onion and saute for several minutes until soft and translucent.

Add ground beef to pan, chopping into smaller chunks with the spatula and stirring as it cooks. Cook until done, when no ‘pink’ remains. Drain the excess fat if necessary.

Open beans and rinse away icky bean juice, add to meat. Open and drain corn niblets, add them as well. Add diced tomatoes, then add salsa, salt, pepper and chili powder to taste. (You can also add more spice with things like Cayenne pepper, hot sauce, etc.) Let the whole meat mixture cook together for a little while. (If it’s a little liquidy, this will reduce the amount of moisture.)

Shred cheeses onto a plate and mix together lightly.

Line a large, microwave safe plate with a layer of chips. Use a slotted spoon to sprinkle some of the mixture on top of the chips (don’t overload too much!), then sprinkle a good amount of cheese on top. Microwave for about 1 minute until the cheese is melted. Add sour cream liberally to chips as desired.

I’d like my hair on the side, please…

The less hair you have, the less you pay at Gary’s Uptown Restaurant and Bar on Wednesdays, and you’re also privy to a special menu which includes flat iron steak, filet of snapper, and chicken fettucine. No hair? 100% off! No kidding! 😉 (I wonder who decides what percentage of ‘bald’ someone is?)

You Little Brat!

That’s not a sausage! THIS is a sausage! Bratwurst, to be specific. A 40-foot bratwurst for the Guinness Book of World Records. (I also never consciously realized before that the short form of bratwurst, ‘brat’, is spelled the same as the snotty-little-kid variety.)

Mmmmm Bacteria

Years ago I heard a theory that said if your body needed some particular nutrient, the foods that contained that nutrient would be appealing to you.

I now accept this theory as completely valid. All my life I’ve hated yogurt, the tangy taste would make me want to gag after a couple of spoonfuls. Then I got sick last week, and the doctor prescribed mega-antibiotics.

The antibiotics must have killed every bit of digestive bacteria in my stomach, because it felt like my entire digestive system had just stopped. If I ate something in the late afternoon, I was still trying to digest it the next morning, ugh!

A friend mentioned eating yogurt, which made sense if I could actually keep the stuff down. Amazingly, I found myself enjoying it, the tangy taste which I hated so much suddenly tasted GOOD to me. Of course the real test will be whether or not I go back to hating it in a week or so.

Not Just A Spud

There’s nothing quite as homey, or as easy, as a baked potato. The other day, we just HAPPENED to have all the fixings on hand… potatoes, monterey jack and extra sharp cheese, fresh green onions, and sour cream. After about an hour in the oven, we split them in half, tossed on the grated cheese (which melts almost instantly in the steam) and the chopped green onions, and then the sour cream, either on top or on the side. I guess it’s also just really satisfying when you already have the ingredients on hand and the meal just BEGS to be created – no need to run out to the store for anything, or plan for it another day when you’ve already got the taste for it in your mind. Excluding the hour in the oven, that’s pretty immediate gratification – LOL.

Ignore the Hype

Recent experiences have led us to concoct this equation: the quality of a food experience is inversely proportional to the amount of media hype (even local) that it gets. First case is a local bakery, which shall remain nameless – we finally stopped in there and bought a loaf of their sliced white bread. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this place, mostly in the paper, but the bread itself was almost completely tasteless, and rather substanceless. Didn’t even make good toast when buttered and jammed.

Second case is all the television, radio, etc. ads for California Cheese. All of the cheese we’ve gotten that’s been stamped with the ‘real California cheese’ has been pretty basic. Not bad, but nothing amazing. My feelings on this might be skewed, of course, coming from Upstate New York, where the cheese section in Wegman’s supermarkets is simply amazing – LOL – without advertising. That, and the fact that they always show cows enjoying sunny skies with lush green fields – in many parts of CA the lush green only happens a few months out of the year or with intensive artificial watering everyday, that’s why the phrase, ‘the golden, rolling hills of California’ exists – dead hay/grass for most of the year.

Anyway, I’m taking the time now to notice things that I DON’T see a lot of hype about, and I’ll say that California wines, for example, seem to sell themselves pretty easily just by word of mouth – now THAT’S saying something. 😉

A Different Kind of Banana Bread

Today we stopped into the San Juan Bakery Outlet within Dorothy McNett’s cooking store in Hollister, CA. I picked up a loaf of sliced white (which was actually less expensive than most better brands in the grocery stores) and also splurged on a smaller loaf of banana bread. It’s not the cakey kind of sweet bread like in the Banana Bread Recipe we have, but more like a regular yeast loaf, something about the size and consistency of typical cinammon-raisin bread. The flavor is more subtle than a sweet bread, but it tastes delicious, even the walnuts taste fresh. Definitely something I’d buy again next time I’m feeling extravagant – LOL.

Beef Lime Wraps


It began as an attempt at crossing Fajitas and Enchiladas, an idea which I will pursue some distant day. (Looks wistfully away from the monitor for a moment).

Somewhere along the way, the green peppers I intended to buy vanished. I’m not sure where or when this happened, but they never made it into my car. Next, one of the onions I bought turned out to be bad, really bad. This left me with one onion and two jalapenos, a bulb of garlic, and some boneless beef short ribs I got on sale.

Searching through the kitchen, I began to assemble some of the more interesting flavoring items. I noticed the lime juice in the back of the refrigerator, and was inspired.

I diced up the onion and jalapenos (removing the seeds) and cut the meat into bite sized pieces. The meat far outweighed the veggies, so the fajita angle was completely out. I sauteed the veggies, added the meat, lime juice and some rice wine vinegar. The mixture seemed a bit dry, and I didn’t want the meat to get tough, so I opted for some water and a little flour to make a more gravy like creation. I let it cook for a while and gave it a taste.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. It needed a lot more zing. I added the rest of the lime juice, some spices and a packet of beef boullion (No MSG of course). I let it cook a bit longer to blend in the new flavorings, and voila! I had… something.

The final result was very tasty. We decided to try it as a wrap with cheese and sour cream (delicious) but it would have gone very well over noodles too.

The official name is Beef Lime Wraps which is perhaps the most accurate, but I’d like to start giving my creations more imagnative names, like “Poochy”, only not so lame.  Here is the recipe…

Beef Lime Wraps

1 Medium Onion
2 Jalapeno Peppers
1 Clove Garlic
2lbs Boneless Short Ribs (This is what I used, but other cuts of steak would work as well)
6oz Lime Juice
1/4 Cup Rice Wine Vinegar
1 Cup Water
1/3 Cup Flour
1/2 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Chili Powder
1 Packet Beef Boullion
1 Salt to taste
6 Medium Flour Tortillas
10 oz Shredded Monterey Jack Cheese
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Sour Cream (optional)

Cut the steak into bite sized pieces, trim away any excess fat.

Mince garlic and put aside.

Finely dice the onion and peppers(remove the seeds) Put the oil in a large saucepan and heat for several minutes. Add onion and peppers, saute’ for 5 minutes then add the garlic and continue to saute for 3 more minutes.

Add beef, lime juice, rice wine vinegar and water to the pan.

Next add flour, cumin, chili powder, beef boullion and salt. Allow mixture to cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Once mixture is ready, spoon into tortillas and roll like an enchilada. Top with shredded cheese and microwave for a minute or so to melt the cheese, top with sour cream and enjoy!

From the Google Kitchen

Looks like they’re having a lot of fun with the newish Google Blog, including a post from a Google Cook, Charlie Ayers, with a recipe for Buttermilk Fried Chicken which Elvis apparently loved. As I was glancing through the ingredients list, I noticed that it calls for ‘organic, free-range chickens’ – Go Google!

This reminds of the time I had the opportunity to have lunch with a group of friends at Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, WA. I wish I could remember exactly what I had, but it’s been a number of years now. Mostly I remember that it was really good, that they had an excellent array (programming pun – heh) of dishes, and it was not typical cafeteria fare at all. Now, if I could just get myself invited to lunch at Google, all will be right with the world. *grin*

To Self-Checkout or Not

I haven’t yet decided if I’m a fan of the Supermarket Self-Checkout or not. I agree with the article in the sense that if you only have a few items, it’s much faster. (The faster you can get that pint of Ben & Jerry’s out of the store, the better!)

When I have more items, however, I have to admit that sometimes the thought of running all of them across the scanner, waiting for verification, and bagging them is just too much work, especially after a long day. On those occasions, I’d rather lean on my cart behind the person in front of me, and amuse myself with tabloid headlines while I wait/rest, and then let someone ELSE do all the work.

Speaking of tabloids… I wonder what kind of impact the self-checkout is having on impulse purchases. For instance, in the one local store that has self-checkouts, there are no impulse items nearby at all – I suppose that’s because there are no clerks around? Hmm.