SICK of Christmas food. Must. Have. Tex Mex.

Well, it's that time of year again. Christmas food galore. Here in Norway, it seems as though we start eating Christmas food about 2 weeks before Christmas. And Norwegian Christmas food is like no other I have had before. Rarely is there a vegetable in sight, and the higher the fat content, the better. Needless to say, I am DONE. I can't eat another piece of ribbe, jule polse, kjøttkaker or anything else I can hardly pronounce.

That being said, today I had such a strong craving for Tex Mex that it about knocked me over. I haven't had it in quite sometime, which is unlike me, so I started going through my mental Tex Mex menu. Growing up in Houston, I had the pleasure of having a number of mom and pop Tex Mex operations pretty much on every corner. I remember so many times out to eat with my family ordering the 'Speedy Gonzales' plate. If you are from Texas, you will know that the Speedy Gonzales is single cheese enchilada, a beef taco in a HARD shell and rice and beans. That's it. A perfect plate for a kid and I think my sisters and I must have consumed thousands of these through the years.

What I would have done for a Speedy Gonzales today. But, I didn't have what it would take to reproduce it, so I settled on creating a plate of super nachos! I love nachos because they are EASY. All you have to do is throw everything on some chips and broil it for a couple of minutes. It is nearly impossible to mess up. I say nearly cause if I said it was impossible, inevitably, someone out there would find a way to screw up nachos. So, this way, we cover all our bases.

I had some pintos that I had made a few months ago in the freezer, so I took them out and reheated them and I had some ground beef in the fridge that REALLY needed to be used, so I cooked that and added Penzey's Ancho chili powder and cumin.


After both of these were cooked, I arranged a baking sheet with nacho chips:


And topped the chips with the beans and the meat:


To this I added chopped pickled jalepenos:


And topped it all with grated cheddar. I use white cheddar cause that is what we have in Norway, but I have actually really grown to love it. It's not sharp at all and has a good mellow flavor. Then just slap it in a hot oven. I usually turn the temperature up to just below broiling, which for me, means about 230 celcius.

Meanwhile, I whipped up a batch of Ninfa's famous green salsa. Lisa over at the Homesick Texan has a great post on this recipe, so if you have all of the ingredients, by all means use her blog as a guide! I cheated, and started with a jar of La Costena Salsa Verde and to that, added a ripe avocado and used my stick blender to make it smooth. I then stirred in some sour cream. It really does taste JUST like Ninfa's green salsa and just makes everything taste better:


Take the nachos out of the oven when the edges turn brown and the cheese is bubbly:


Top the nachos with whatever cold things you want. I used tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro and chopped white onion and put a generous helping of the green salsa on the bottom of the plate to put the nachos on top of:


Of course I had to have a diet coke over ice:


And I was in HEAVEN. It was like a Christmas miracle. Those flavors were just amazing after all of the rich and heavy food I have been consuming over the last few weeks. It's times like these that I am so thankful for my Texas roots and even more thankful for my ability to recreate some of my favorite flavors in food:


Who wants turkey now???

Merry Christmas from Norway, y'all!