Cooking With James... Did I just make Vegan Nachos?

I've been in a blogging mood this week and the dining halls have been closed so I've been cooking more. While neither of these stories merit their own blog, with their powers combined, I hope you'll find my continuing adventures with cooking amusing.

First, about a week ago I volunteered to make salsa for my end of the year pot luck with my coworkers. Thing is, I didn't know how to make salsa. I figured, how hard can it be.

I looked up some recipes and picked one I thought sounded good. Then there was buying the ingredients. I think the produce aisle is the most confusing and misleading area of the supermarket. First the prices are lies. If you look closely, most prices are based on weight. Except these days there are no scales around because nobody actually bothers to weigh things anymore. Most shoppers just know how many or how much of something they want by looking at, or "eyeballing" it.

But you know how they do this? They've gone to the produce section every few weeks for years and years and years of their lives. I've never developed this magic "eyeball" that everyone else seems to possess. So naturally it takes me like an hour to buy like a few chilies an onion and a can of tomatoes. Anyway, I finally buy the produce and go back to make the salsa.

Following the instructions, I start to make the salsa, then immediately change the recipe. A whole onion was just too much! Or maybe I bought too big an onion. Garlic cloves are supposed to be finely chopped or use a garlic press thingy. What the heck is a garlic press thingy? Do you know hard it is to chop garlic?? I wasn't even sure which part of the clove was the edible part. Thank goodness for garlic salt. Also, chopping onions, my eyes were ok. Then I chopped peppers and my eyes were a little foggy. Then I chopped cilantro and my eyes burned. Nobody warns you about the cilantro!!

After slicing, dicing and hoping everything I eyeballs would suffice, I threw everything into a big pot and turned my stove on. Yes, the directions called for cooking the salsa, which I think is counter intuitive, even if you are making roasted salsa (which I don't think I was). It said bring the salsa to a boil and then cook for a minute or two. So not long. I turn the stove on high and walk to the living room while it heats up. Clark was watching an episode of 30 Rock on Netflix, so I sat down to watch a clip or two. 5 clips later I was like, OH CRAP THE SALSA! I never thought I'd miss commercial breaks so much! I ran back to the stove and smelled the unstirred salsa bubbling.

That's right, I almost burned salsa.

Fortunately I saved it and stirred it and took it off the stovetop and called it done. It actually turned out really good and I even recreated it with my leftover ingredients. I got a lot of compliments, though half the people couldn't eat it cuz it was too spicy. Their loss.

Speaking of salsa, I finished the last of my second batch making myself nachos. After a harrowing evening about which I will relay on Sunday, I went into work late, so I had lunch here first. I knew I was going to play basketball later, so I wanted some starch. I also wanted to eat healthy so I wanted some veggies. And I wanted to be not hungry, so I needed something substantial. Solution: Chips, microwaveable frozen veggies, black beans, cheese and my salsa. I had some chicken but it was frozen and would take too much time.

I cook up the beans and microwave the veggies. No problems so far. I get a big bowl, knowing that a whole can of beans before basketball was a bad idea, so I wanted something that when I was full would be easy to store. I toss in the chips and veggies and beans. Then I went to get some cheese to melt on top. The only cheese in the fridge was some white cheese. Not ideal but OK. Check the expiration dates. 2009?? WHY DO WE HAVE CHEESE FROM 2009!! DID WE EVEN LIVE HERE IN 2009??

I am the only one in my household that even inconsistently clears our the fridge and throws old food away. So I was hungry so I continued making my nachos. I was like, ok vegetarian nachos. I can live with that. I just had all you can eat Brazilian Steakhouse on Saturday. This would be good. Then I was like, but wait. No cheese. Did I just accidentally make Vegan Nachos? Are they even Nachos if there's no cheese? They not 'cho nachos if they got no nacho cheese. Sorry I had to try to make some stupid pun there. Well I ate it anyway but still, vegan nachos? Sad.

That's all the cooking with James today. One more fun little cooking moment. Though I successfully barbecued a bunch of burgers and hot dogs on my little bbq grill, I did have one mishap where for the last two hot dogs, I tried to pick both up with my tongs and sent them both spiraling to the dirty floor. Sad but amused at my failure, I placed the two weiners in Brocks garden to help it grow.

And with that probably Jamesism, I leave you. I say goodday!