Last weekend, we had the most amazingly glorious cool front blow through southeast Texas that left me so ready for sweatshirts and frito pie and Friday night football games.

We don’t usually get very much of (what most people consider) a fall, but the snippets we do get are to be immediately celebrated with early morning runs, crockpots full of chili, and publicly sporting a scarf and riding boots. Even though we all know that chilly morning low of 60 will quickly climb to 81 by lunch.

IT STILL COUNTS.

With windows open and Pandora blasting a carefully crafted no-BroCountry-allowed station, we set out to make football munchies for the don’t-even-think-about-turning-on-the-AC weekend.

We started with melted cheese. And a shot of tequila.

We cook up some Chorizo (mexican pork sausage) and then deglaze the pan with tequila to get the flavors from all those browned bits of wonderful into the dip.

Someone onions, cheese, a can of black beans later, and a bowl of pico de gallo later, we’re ready for action. (And by “action,” I mean sitting on the couch in front of football.)

Serve it in any one of these approved, tried-and-true methods: with chips, straight from a bowl. Make a big pan of nachos and graze all day while screaming Mommy words at the TV. Grab a stack of tortillas and wrap up a scoop of the leftovers with scrambled eggs the next morning.

Your call. You win.

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Nachos with Chorizo and Black Bean Queso

Chile con queso spiked with tequila, black beans, and chorizo sausage.

Ingredients

• For the queso:
• 12 oz Chorizo sausage, removed from casing and crumbled
• 1 1/2 oz (3 Tbsp) tequila
• 1/2 small red onion
• 1/2-3/4 cup milk
• 12 oz white American cheese, shredded
• 4 oz Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• For the nachos:
• Tortilla chips
• 1/2 pint grape tomatoes, diced
• 2 jalapenos, sliced
• Small handful of cilantro, chopped
• Juice from half a lime
• Salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375.
2. In a sauce pan over medium-high, brown the sausage thoroughly.
3. Transfer the cooked sausage to a strainer (I also quickly ran the strainer under hot water to remove extra fat - sacrilegious but seriously, there's so much fat!) and remove as much of the grease from the pan as possible without scraping off any of the browned bits from the pan.
4. Add tequila and red onions to the pan and return it to the cooktop, stirring and scraping the browned bits from the pan.
5. When the liquid has evaporated, add 1/2 cup milk and the shredded cheese.
6. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir frequently to help melting along. Add cooked chorizo, beans, and additional milk if, after melted, it still seems too thick.
7. Place tortilla chips on a baking sheet.
8. Pour the queso over the chips (I saved a few spoonfuls for breakfast tacos) and pop into the oven for 10 minutes.
9. Mix the tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro, lime juice, and a pinch of salt in a small bowl. Spoon over the nachos fresh from the oven.
10. Serve hot or warm.

Notes

Yields: Servings vary

Source: Confections of a Foodie Bride

Estimated time: 20 minutes