Touching back on a post we did this past October on the versatility + virtues of employing dried beans in your cooking, another good use for them—homemade iron skillet nachos, man.
Just get your favorite brand of tortilla chips and, in an iron skillet or other heavy cookwear, layer your cookable, non-fresh toppings throughout, to ensure even distribution (as opposed to just topping them). Here we used our cooked, mashed kidney beans, seasoned as mentioned in that initial post and a homemade cashew cheese—Isa’s got a good recipe, but we tend to just soak a cup of raw cashews overnight and then blend with some salt, a little nutritional yeast, and a clove or two of garlic, adding a little more seasoning to taste, but keeping it simple.
Then, if you’ve got a bottom-loading gas broiler, like we do, set the oven to broil and wait for it to pre-heat, then carefully open the broiler drawer and throw the skillet in under the broiler. Watch it really carefully checking the nachos often—it’ll only take a minute or two for them to cook well under that much direct heat. And watch the smoke—we have to close our bedroom door (next to the kitchen) to make sure the smoke alarm doesn’t go off when we do this. If you don’t have the ability to put the nachos directly under the fire, you can just broil them in the main oven compartment, again watching them closely.
Then carefully remove when you’re satisfied with the browning/blackening on the top and add you fresh ingredients—here we used a quick pickle red cabbage (slice up some red cabbage and cover in apple cider, white, or rice vinegar, mixing up every now and then and letting sit for at least ten minutes), sliced scallions, and a local salsa (Heidi’s, I think).
Serve and enjoy!
