Nacho dinner

Nachos are one of my top items to make for a weeknight dinner. A) Cheese on chips, obviously. B) I almost always have enough toppings at home so we've got our basis covered. C) You can throw on whatever on it and it's almost, always, delicious. Though I have my favorite toppings, your go-to toppings are probably different but awesome in their own way. With a pint of beer, put something on Netflix, voila, we can have a bar night/date night/movie night, whatever night that tickles your fancy.

Recipe:
- Leave frozen meat in cold water to thaw for 30 min. If you have fresh ground pork or beef, either is good. During this time you can run errands, idle, prep the rest of the ingredients, or just relax.
- Prep and cut the vegetables. I like my nacho dish extra veggie packed - I chopped 2 roma tomato, 1/2 head of romaine lettuce, 1/4 of green bell pepper, 1/4 onion, 1 green onion. keep aside.
- shred cheddar cheese, I used about 1/2 cup of shredded cheese. You can add more if you like it cheesy.
- cook ground meat in pan on med heat, with 1 tsp of chopped ginger, 2 cloves of chopped garlic, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of cumin, a dash of black pepper. I typically cook my meat until it's pretty crispy, meaning not barely cooked, no pink bits showing at all, almost browned and crispy.
- Today I felt a bit adventurous so I added about 100 g of firm tofu, chopped up to small pieces and cooked it during the 2nd half when I browned my meat. I thought it was not going to work but fortunately for me, the tofu actually added some fluffiness and softness - really nice actually. You can forgo this bit, ofcourse.
- Take glass baking pan, I used a 6x8 inch one and layered 1 layer of chip, put half of the meat/tofu mixture, and half of the cheese. I also threw in some chopped onion and green pepper. now second layer of chips, same deal. I find the onion and green pepper are better when layered in early - so they are slightly cooked.
- Put entire glass pan into microwave, 2 min on high to melt the cheese. Some people suggest to use oven, I find it tastes the same, so can't be bothered with that, microwave is way faster.
- Once done, throw on raw tomato, lettuce, green onion, and ready to eat. See I paired mine with a nice pint of cold bevvy, it's just a jolly ol' time, eh ol' chap?

Note: I sometimes have jalapenos, those would be great sliced and thrown on top. I'd typically layer those onto the chips before it goes into the microwave to cook them a bit. The problem with jalapenos tho.. they are like Russian roulette: 1 tastes like nothing, 2 tastes like nothing, the 3rd one makes me cry and my fingers burn and why jalapenos why? So I tend to skip it these days unless I feel lucky or adventurous.

There you have it. About 45 min total include my thawing frozen meat time. If anyone ever makes it I'd love to hear what your favorite nacho toppings are.