Plant-based nachos

I ❤️ nachos and I order them any chance I get.

However, I hate the fact that often they aren’t vegetarian due to the refried beans, and the chips are always soggy or bare.

I decided to make my own plant-based nachos and see how they stack up to the competition.

It turns out, if you put the chips on the side, this solves the problem having soggy and bare chips! A nacho purist might argue against this, but I feel this is 100% needed improvement.

I’m pretty happy with how these came out, and would definitely make again.

Plant-based nachos recipe

Ingredients

  • Vegetarian refried black beans (Amy’s)
  • Fire roasted diced tomatoes
  • Plant-based cheese (Chao Mexican blend)
  • Avocado
  • Garlic – minced
  • Lime juice
  • Cilantro – chopped
  • Plant-based sour cream (Sprouts)
  • Hot sauce (Today I used Orange Sauce from La Vic’s)
  • Tortilla chips

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 375°

Layer in an oven-safe dish: refried beans, tomatoes, and then cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted.

While that’s baking, combine avocado, lime juice, garlic, and cilantro. Add salt if you like! I typically use 1 avocado, 1 teaspoon of lime juice, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, and a pinch of cilantro. Adjust lime juice depending on how ripe the avocado is.

When the cheese is melted, remove from oven, top with avocado mixture, sour cream, hot sauce, and additional cilantro.

Serve with chips on the side.

Meant to Be

Meant to Be by Emily Giffin is a romance novel centered around a fictional Kennedy-esque family.

While enjoyable, I often found the story to be bland, the characters shallow, and overall less than what I expect from Emily Giffin.

Touching on a plethora of issues—domestic abuse, dead parents, the pressures of being from a famous family and dealing with the paparazzi—Meant to Be fails to connect on an emotional level. Throughout the novel, our narrators Cate and Joe are telling instead of showing us the story. This distance makes it fairly emotionless.

Standard rom-com plot format. Some backstory, a meet-cute, the dating period, “the event” that separates our couple, the subsequent reconnecting, and finishing off with a happy ending.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Thanks to Netgalley.com and Ballantine Books for an advance copy. All opinions are my own.