What was the last thing you cooked?

[Jeff T]

Bought an uncooked pizza and threw it in the oven. The 15 minute wait was worth it.

I wonder what Ogg and his Stone-Tool Henchmen would have thought of this meal 10,000 years ago.

 

[Judge]

Pasta Parmesan casserole.

Angel Hair pasta, ground beef, red & green peppers, parsley all in a Parmesan cheese sauce.

Special culinary kudos to Rice-A-Roni.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Last night: Pork fajitas with refried beans and rice. All from scratch.

Tonight: Slow, delicious, thick spaghetti sauce to top the noodles and meatballs my daughter made. All from scratch.

 

[Mary Terry]

Homemade nachos, with homemade nacho cheese sauce:

1 or 2 bags of the cheap tortilla chips you get in the stores. I don't recommend Tostitos, but if that's what you really want, it will work. But the thin chips in the paper bags tend to be perfect for nachos.

1 pound of pepper jack, manually shredded
0.5 pounds of sharp cheddar, manually shredded
1.5 cups of water
1.75-2 teaspoons of sodium citrate
Optional, but recommended: some pickled jalapeños, added a few at a time
Alternative to the jalapeños? 1 teaspoon of lime juice added at the VERY end, after the nacho cheese sauce has been removed from the heat and allowed to cool just a little bit

(A lot of recipes call for 1 cup of water, 1 cup of cheese, and 1 teaspoon of sodium citrate, but I've found that I tend to need more sodium citrate.)

Boil water on the stove.

When it's barely boiling, stir in the sodium citrate.

Stir in the cheese a few handfuls at a time.

You're not looking for it to be super super boiling. You just want the watery stuff on the top to not be there anymore, and for the stringy cheese on the bottom to not be stringy anymore. You want a sauce that's pretty much consistent all the way through, like the nacho cheese sauce you'd get in a convenience store. If the watery stuff on top and the stringy cheese on the bottom aren't coming together, add a little bit more sodium citrate, bit-by-bit.

Once the nacho cheese sauce comes together, it's going to taste pretty good. Let it cool for JUST a little bit(not too much, as if it gets too cool it can start to turn into solid not runny cheese). That's when you kick it up a notch by adding either a teaspoon of the juice from your pickled jalapeños, or a teaspoon of lime juice. Stir that stuff in.

Once you've stirred it in well, you can pour it over your chips. Add some pickled jalapeños if you want some jalapeños, but be careful not to add too many. A few at a time until it's perfect.

Wow! That's a very complex recipe for nachos. I bet it is delicious.

I spread Santita tortilla chips in a single layer on a lined sheet pan, put a generous amount of shredded sharp cheddar all over them, put a slice of pickled jalapeno pepper on each chip, and roast in preheated 375-degree F oven for about 15-20 minutes till cheese is melted and just starting to brown around the edges. Any kind of sharp cheese will work, except possibly bleu cheese but that might be tasty too.

 

[Judge]

I like to make nachos using broken up tostada tortillas from Guerrero. Less expensive and are usually fresher than typical name-brand tortilla chips.

 

[JayLapointe]

I didn't cook it, I carefully and meticulously selected it from a group of hundreds, so I hope it counts. The last thing I had was the most perfect Macintosh apple ever. Crisp but not tough, slightly sour but not too much, and not dried out, still juicy. I'm not a big apple man, but that perfect Mac gets me every time.

 

[TBRS1]

Made a really nice breakfast quiche.