Not Another Superbowl Post
Don’t tell Mike, but I invented my recipe for pot stickers on Saturday and served them to company (and Mike) on Sunday.
Mike always gets super nervous when I invent recipes. There was this terrible incident involving despicable pizza dough, which I don’t believe I will ever live down. But aside from that, I’m a damn good cook! On my first try, I’ve invented my own versions of:
- Sweet and sour chicken,
- Pot stickers,
- Pot sticker dipping sauce,
- Chicken teriyaki,
- Pineapple dipping sauce,
- Nachos, and
- The irresistible triple chocolate cookies
…among other things.
Because I’m in a sharing mood, I thought I’d share a couple “recipes.” I don’t actually use measuring cups or spoons all that often, so volume is really kind of a guess. I love cooking.
Nachos
This is for Dave. He eats them like they’re the last food on earth every time he comes over. Unfortunately for Dave, and anyone else who wants to try my nachos, I not only don’t measure anything, I change up the ingredients depending on how I feel or what I’ve got in the fridge. More or less, though, it’s pretty similar.
Ingredients:
- oil that you spray out of a can
- 1 onion, cut into various sized bits, depending on my mood (sweet onions are better in bigger pieces, stronger onions I usually mince)
- 1 carrot (if I feel like it) cut into tiny bits
- 1 bell pepper, whatever color I have around, cut into small bits
- 1 lb. ground turkey (yes, I use turkey, I don’t like beef)
- Salt (smallish amount)
- Pepper (smallish amount)
- Cayenne pepper (just a dash, more if you like it spicy)
- Chili powder (a good amount, probably a teaspoon or more)
- Onion powder (more than a little, less than a lot… yeah, I’m super helpful)
- Garlic powder (about the same as onion powder)
- 1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 1/2 – 3/4 C. salsa
- 1/4 C. or so of taco seasoning (I use McCormick for my nachos, but I never use it for tacos, it tastes gross on tacos for some reason)
- Enough water to dissolve the taco seasoning
- Some round nacho chips (I find the round ones make for easier eating)
- Mexican blend shredded cheese
Preheat the oven to 425.
Put the veggies in hot pan that you’ve sprayed with spray oil. Cook them until they’re more or less soft. Meanwhile, sprinkle the spices (but not the taco seasoning) on the meat and mix it up a bit. Push the veggies to the sides of the pan, and add the meat. You should probably know that you need a pretty darn big pan to make this stuff. We have a huge one that Mike got on clearance when he worked next to a mall. Cook the meat, crumbling it up, until it’s not pink any more. Add the salsa, taco seasoning, water, and beans. Stir well, and turn the temperature down to medium. Keep stiring until the liquid is all absorbed or evaporated.
Layer the nachos on a pan for the oven. Chips, meat mixture, cheese – I usually do three decreasingly sized layers. You will have way to much meat mixture to make one batch. Usually there’s enough for 3 different days of nachos. Just reheat the meat mixture in the microwave so it isn’t cold before you make the next batch.
Bake the mass for 9 minutes (10 is too long). Eat with more salsa and sour cream if you feel like it. Though they are plenty flavorful on their own.
It turns out that recipes take up a lot of room! Since I generally try to keep my posts under epic length, you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to get my pot sticker recipe. But you should wait very impatiently, because they taste good, and you might want to make them.
Just because I feel like making myself a liar, here’s what I thought of the super bowl. It was boring. I can’t watch football when it’s not the Patriots. The commercials were more or less pathetic. Thank God for good friends!
My favorite commercial (which I’m sure I’ll be made fun of for) was the Budweiser one where the pony was trying to pull the cart. It was cute. It was made cuter by Kate:
(The commercial starts.)
Kate: “Ooh! Pony! Cute!”
(The pony puts his head in the strap or whatever you call that.)
Kate: “Awww…”
(The pony tries to pull the cart. He is succeeding.)
Kate: “Oh! You know the big horses are just pushing the cart!”
(The view pans to the back of the cart, where the big horses are in fact pushing.)
Kate, along with many others in the room, including me: “AWW!!”
(“We won’t tell if you don’t,” or something like that.)
Kate: “Oh my God, I’m going to cry.”
Diane: “I think I am crying!”
Kate: “Me too!”