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Easy Lunch: Waste-Not Nachos

With five hungry eaters in our family, lunch time can turn into a straight up emergency if I re-discover clocks around 11:40 AM. I don't spend enough on bread to permit us to eat sandwiches every day, and if the leftovers in the fridge are earmarked for dinner I'm in a real pinch. Beyond this, sometimes we just crave something that feels like snack food.

Enter: nachos! I use the term in the loosest possible sense, as this recipe does not involve liquid orange pasteurized processed cheese food, with or without tiny pieces of something that resembles jalapeño. The main ingredient in the dip is salsa (I use the amazing fire-charred salsa that I can every summer), plus a meat component and a bean component, and then as much cheese as I feel I can spare (often a combination of grated aged cheese or perhaps mozzarella and my homemade labneh--though the labneh does beautifully by itself in a pinch). It's easy to make additions like pickled jalapeños or refried beans, and I almost always put a dollop or three of home-soured cream on top.

Recipe: Waste-Not Nachos

Serves two adults and three kids

One pint salsa
One cup of cooked meat--ground beef, pressure canned stew meat, leftover turkey--shredded, whatever you've got
One cup of fully cooked beans--canned are fine
Cheese in a variety and quantity that works for you and your budget
Other toppings for serving--olives, pickled jalapeños, refried beans, etc.--optional
Sour cream for serving--optional
Corn chips for serving

Put salsa in a pan over medium heat. Add meat and beans; heat until you get some bubbles, but not a simmer, stirring once or twice. Add cheese; continue to heat until cheese melts adequately.

You can pile your chips on a plate and dump your salsa mixture over it. You know, like nachos. I prefer to have the toppings in a bowl and dip the chips. Either way, add any toppings/garnishes on top of the salsa mixture, with sour cream over all.

Variations--this for me is the best part! This is so flexible and easy to vary with whatever leftovers you have on hand. Just the other day I used about a serving of leftover meatloaf for the meat--I just broke it up small and dropped it in. And for the beans, I used a small amount of the baked beans I'd served for dinner alongside the meatloaf. Alternatively, if you've been eating chili for a few days and only have two cups or so left, you're 3/4 of the way to nachos: just add about a cup of salsa and whatever other mixins you like, along with however much cheese you deem appropriate, and there you have it: those leftovers aren't taking up space in the fridge, you did virtually no work to get lunch of the table, and nobody noticed they were eating chili again. Win, win, win!

Finally, I occasionally make the corn chips. I use masa flour (easy to find in the latin food section of WalMart or Wegmans) and use the recipe on the package to make tortillas, then cut them in quarters and fry them in lard or tallow. This adds significantly to the amount of work involved, but when your family loves nachos as much as mine does, and can't always afford corn chips, now and then it's worth the time.

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