Vegan Nachos

I got home from work later than I'd planned on Monday night, was starving, and had no idea what I would make for dinner. I'm a big fan of Mexican food and if I've got the ingredients, that is almost always my go-to cuisine. I discovered I had tortillas, some left over black beans, as well as other fixin's so I decided to make vegan nachos.

I've taken to making my own tortilla chips rather than keep a bag on hand. I find that if I have chips in the house, I will almost always start snacking on them when I come home hungry (which is most nights) and end up either spoiling my dinner or eating the chips AND dinner, thus eating way too much. As long as you have tortillas, it's easy to make chips - but time consuming enough that you don't just make them to snack on!

Here are the ingredients I use to make homemade chips:

Tortillas, pizza cutter, salt, pepper, spray olive oil, lime

I buy Whole Foods tortillas that they make right in the store. I think they have 4 ingredients + spices so not a super processed food.  I like flour or whole wheat tortillas for chips, but you can use corn tortillas too.  I think they have less flavor, though, and tend more toward tasting like cardboard. (Isn't that a ringing endorsement?!)

The first thing you do is cut your tortilla(s) into triangles:



Then spray a cookie sheet with the olive oil, dump the tortilla slices on the sheet, spray the pieces with a little more oil, and then sprinkle them with salt and pepper.  (You can also use chili powder or chipotle powder if you want a litle more spice.)

Bake the chips in the oven at 350.  After about 10 minutes, flip the chips over.  Bake another 10 minutes and check the chips.  You want them crispy and slightly brown.  In my oven, it takes about 22-25 minutes to bake them just right. 

When the chips were baking, I got the toppings ready.  I took the left over black beans I had a seasoned them with salt, pepper, chipotle powder, and garlic and pureed them with a hand blender. This makes almost a refried bean consistency but it's a little soupier.  My beans were pretty well drained, but if yours have a lot of liquid in them (and are too soupy for nachos), you can just add some bread crumbs or nutritional yeast to thicken them.

I also prepared some veggies to go on the nachos: grape tomatoes, some red onion I had left over from another recipe, and some jalapenos.  If I'd had fresh peppers I definitely would have preferred them, but I always keep a jar of sliced jalapenos in the fridge for nights like this.

When the chips were done, I squeezed the juice of half a lime over them. Then I added the bean paste and the toppings and put them back in the oven for 5 or 6 minutes to heat everything through. (If you want to add cheese - either real or a vegan substitute - you could do that now, but I prefer mine sans cheese.)

While the nachos were heating, I whipped up some guacamole. My recipe is very simple: I mash up the avocado and mix in garlic, salt, pepper, and chipotle powder. That's it. I like to preserve the taste of the avocado and think that too many recipes out there add so much stuff that you can't taste the avocado. I ended up using a whole avocado because much of it was bruised and couldn't be used. But normally I use just half of one and keep the other half for the next day. If you want to keep half, take the half with the pit still in it and wrap it REALLY tightly in Saran wrap or Press 'n Seal and refrigerate it. You have to use it the next day but it should keep until then.  Here's my yummy guac:



And here is my dinner ready to be eaten! (It was too much food but it was SO GOOD.)