Chicken & Avocado Nachos w/ Black Bean Spread

Things in my kitchen don’t always go according to plan…

But that’s ok. I make the best of it

This weekend, I got together with the girls in my recipe group. We try to get together once a month for a night away from the boys and each month we pick a theme or category of foods. This month was Mexican. I made some black bean and avocado nachos since I knew a few ladies were bringing casserole type things. Everything was delicious! I even snagged some leftovers for the hubby. However, I was feeling a little guilty when I got home because my nachos didn’t transport well. The chips got soggy and the toppings slid all over the place. Since nachos are one of the hubby’s favorite foods, I thought I would recreate them for dinner this week.

But I wanted to kick them up a notch. I tossed some ideas around in my head and came up with homemade tortilla chips and extra black beans.

I decided to tackle the beans first. I know there are a lot of recipes out there for black bean hummus…but to me, it’s not hummus unless it includes chickpeas. Since I didn’t put any in mine, I’m calling it a spread. Here’s what I did:

I added some black beans to my mini food processor. Then I added some leftover spinach that I needed to use up, along with some tahini and cumin. I added some cilantro, a little olive oil, a little water and some cayenne pepper and voila!

I cooked the chicken and sliced the veggies before starting on the chips.

The hubby and I don’t really shop at Trader Joes, although I love it….it’s not that close to our house. But we were in the area this weekend and we popped in to look around. We came out with four things: a jar of spaghetti sauce that’s super low in sodium, some chicken sausages that were cheaper than the kind we normally buy, a package of orzo and these whole wheat tortillas. I bought the tortillas because they were lower in sodium than the kinds I can find at my grocery store as well…plus they have 4 grams of fiber and are low in sugar:

I decided to turn some of them into homemade tortilla chips. I sliced them into wedges, sprayed them lightly with cooking spray and popped them in the oven at 425. After 4 minutes, I flipped them over. Then things went downhill. They didn’t seem to be doing much so I bumped the temp up to 450 and after another 4 minutes, half of them looked like this:

I was bummed, but not to be deterred. I really wanted those homemade chips. So I salvaged the ones that I could:

I didn’t have enough to make the whole batch of nachos so I combined them with some blue corn chips. I put some of the black bean spread onto the homemade chips:

Then I added the veggies (mushrooms, onion, tomatoes, corn), black beans, chicken and cheese:

Bake until the cheese melts and THEN (this is important) add the avocados. I learned the hard way that putting avocados in the oven makes them turn brown. Which is fine, but then they don’t look as pretty

Ta-Da! Another easy dinner completed. Serve with salsa and the extra black bean spread. And some broccoli, if that’s how you roll.

My hubby is constantly complaining that I don’t put enough cheese on the nachos. I’m constantly telling him I’m doing my part to keep him healthy

So tell me, do you ever make your own tortilla chips?

DON’T FORGET TO SEND ME YOUR SUBMISSIONS FOR LINDSAY’S LUNCHBOX!!!!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–