Date Night Dinners - Nachos Madness

4/03/2015 tringel 0 Comments

March Madness is back for another year of crowd favorites, upsets, and emotional roller coasters over bracket choices and outcomes. Brenden loves March Madness, and four years ago, after only a few weeks of dating, he got me hooked. He showed me how to fill out my own bracket, and being the dedicated sports fan I am, I proceeded to strategically pick out my winners based on which school had the coolest name, which state I liked the best, which school I had friends at, and so on. I was sure I could go far with my bracket - just kidding. Even though I had no chance of winning or coming close, and I probably stayed in the bottom twenty-fifth percentile the entire time, I had a blast.


I was addicted. And every year since, I have continued to count down the days in March until I am able to fill out my bracket. And every year, I have continued to use my amazing methods to choose my winning teams. I think I have had OSU winning the tournament three years out of four, even when they were seeded towards the bottom, because who are we kidding, I still don't watch mainstream sports. Synchronized swimming though, I'll talk technique to you for days.



This year March Madness has come, and I have gone through my usual rituals of picking. I already had a feeling my picks weren't going to leave me very high on the scoreboard. But I was wrong and it did. After the first round I was in the one hundredth percentile. But I wasn't getting my hopes up, I was remaining realistic. After all, as Abby Lee Miller says, "when you are number one there is nowhere else to go but down." I was ready for that tumble.

But it didn't come. I continued to stay in the top ninety-fifth percentile while Brenden tried to get above the thirtieth. I was - and if you couldn't tell, still am - ecstatic. I still know the there are a lot of points to be lost with the final four coming up, and the greatness that is my bracket probably won't last. It has already began to crumble after Duke beat Gonzaga last week. Sadly, my bracket is slowly starting to fall apart as Brenden catches up to me in points. But who knows, it's March Madness and anything could still happen. Come on Wisconsin, you have amazing cheese! And from what they tell me, some skill in basketball.

In celebration of my bracket doing epically well, in celebration of getting cable and being able to watch the games - and yes I have gotten into watching them this past week - and in hopes my bracket won't completely fall apart - or in Brenden's case that it will and he will win our bet - we decided to make some game watching food for date night.

With game watching food comes, gluttony and calories, grease and mess, and overall tasty goodness that you later tend to regret. Brenden and I have been trying really hard to eat healthy, but what is the fun in that during March Madness. We decided to make nachos, not the worse choice when it comes to game time bites, but still not the best. At least it has a potential of having all the food groups, right?


Just like March Madness though, everything is not as you might expect. We made the nachos, with all the toppings, but we made the chips out of vegetables. Sweet potatoes to be exact. We are becoming experts at Giving Dishes A Healthy Spin 101, if you ask me. But really, if you think about it, prepared the right way, nachos aren't that bad for you. The toppings are served in every day dishes we call healthy all the time. It is those pesky chips that do you in. And by making the chips ourselves, that are literally baked sweet potatoes, we fixed that issue.

Not only did we make our nachos healthier, but we made them even more delicious. With added sweetness from the sweet potato chips mixing with spiciness from seasonings we rubbed on our chicken, it was like a tasty explosion of goodness in our mouths. We still had some saltiness that all nachos need from the sweet potatoes because after all they were made into chips. And then we had the flavors from all the extra toppings we chose working their way into our masterpiece of flavor.



Homemade sweet potato chips piled high with guacamole, spicy chicken, and cheesy goodness. Can you say amaze-balls. We did, right before we dug in and nervous ate the whole plate - good thing it was mostly vegetables and protein.

Sweet Potato and Chicken Nachos
Recipe adapted from lexiscleankitchen.com, Loaded Paleo Nachos

Ingredients

• 1-2 large sweet potatoes
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt, as desired
• 1 lb chicken breast or tenderloin
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 1 bell pepper, diced
• Mexican cheese blend, shredded, as desired
• 1-10 oz can corn
• About 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
• Your favorite Salasa, as desired
• Your favorite guacamole, as desired

Directions

1. For the Potatoes (Nacho Chips):
1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Thinly slice the sweet potatoes using a mandolin, or a knife or grater if you don't have a mandolin.
3. Coat the sweet potato slices with a thin layer of olive oil.
4. Sprinkle with salt as desired.
5. Line a baking tray with the season sweet potato slices, placing in an even layer and not overlapping. Note: you may have to do this in batches to cook all of the slices.
6. Place the baking tray with potato slices in the oven for 30-40 minutes, keeping an eye on the development of cooking, you do not want them to burn.
7. After that time, the sweet potato slices should be beginning to curl up and dry out, remove them from the oven, flip over and place back in the oven for another 30-40 minuted, keeping a careful eye on them.
8. Remove the slices from the oven when they are dry and crispy to the touch but not burnt. Note: the slices continue to get crispy for several minutes after being removed from the oven.
2. For the Chicken and veggies:
1. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.
2. Combine the chicken pieces with the chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne pepper, coating evenly and thoroughly.
3. In a large skillet, cook the chicken through.
4. When the chicken is about done cooking, add in the diced onion and bell pepper and cook for another 5-7 minutes or until tender.
3. For the Assembly:
1. On a large plate, place the sweet potato chips.
2. Top with cooked chicken and veggies.
3. Sprinkle with cheese as desired.
4. Add corn, then tomatoes, salsa and finally guacamole.
5. Dig in - if your like Brenden, grab a fork and do the polite thing; if your like me, use you fingers to scoop as many toppings onto each chip as possible.