Bachelor Chow

Single men living alone across the world, RISE UP! Take a stand and be counted among the hundreds of bachelors everywhere who can cook for themselves; bachelors whose meals, less frequently, include driving to a speaker box, yelling your order at some 16 year old kid who doesn't hear you because he's hitting on the cashier girl, and picking your food up from a person who looks like they've been gutting fish with their fingernails. I write to you, friends, as a bachelor myself. I am a man living on my own, who, through a few restaurant jobs as a cook, learned enough about food to, at least think I can, bring you simple at home ways to feed yourself.

I am not here to tell you to stop eating a double cheeseburgers from McDonald's; quite the contrary. Those damn things are delicious. What I am here for is to give you a couple ideas that, I whole-heartedly believe, are bachelor proof. (However unskilled you might be in the kitchen)

I am going to start off quite simply here fellas, but first, if you're like me, you may tend to bury your stove top with an array of random materials including, but not limited to, paper and plastic shopping bags, pizza boxes, dirty drinking glasses, as well as makeup pencils left over from Halloween last month. Clear off the clutter. You're going to need the room, and my guess is if your stove top looks that way, then I'm willing to bet your counter space is similar or worse.

Now i told you this was going to be easy, correct? Correct. Well it is. I came up with the idea after a long night of binge drinking at my town's local bars (if that's any indication of the simplicity) . I know what you must be thinking, and though, in my circle of friends I am known to come up with crazy late night concoctions, I can assure you that what i am about to share with you is great.

If there was a top ten list for great guy food most of you reading might agree that atop that list would be nachos and pizza, but why not combine the two? That's right...

PIZZA NACHOS!

No messing with dough stretching this night gentlemen. First off, you're going to need a cookie sheet and the oven preheating at 350 degrees. There's really no need for any sort of oil, or cooking spray on the pan, so don't worry about that. Secondly, grab a bag of good old tortilla chips and spread them out evenly across the cookie sheet. Next, take a jar of your favorite pizza sauce and a tablespoon. That's the bigger of the two spoon sizes you may have in your silverware drawer. I find that the generic store brand pizza sauce is just as good as the name brand, and in some cases is even better. Drop some dollops of the sauce over the spread out chips until your little heart's content. Some people like a lot of sauce and some don't. It's up to you. Next, you guessed it. Cheese. If you couldn't tell by now, you're ,basically, building a pizza to your own specifications, except instead of a soft doughy crust, you're using a nacho base. If I may make a suggestion on the cheese though, i would recommend the 4+ pizza cheese blend you can find in the dairy section. And, again, the generic cheeses are just as good (and they'll save some cash too).

From here on out the rest of the construction is up to you. Top the pizza nachos with whatever you might top your favorite pizza with or experiment with other things as well. Personally, I am a fan of fresh mushrooms, onion, tomato, and basil, as well as black olives, but recently found that kalamata olives add a whole new dimension of delicious flavor.

If you're feeling a little crazy do the pizza nachos in multiple layers. Have fun with it.

After your pizza nachos are loaded up, pop the tray into the oven. The temperature of your oven should be hot enough by then, or if not its close enough (the red light will turn off when the oven reaches 350). You really only need to let the nachos cook for ten minutes. Let the cheese melt and bubble a little and you're good to go. Just a little advice for the easily distracted, as well as people who claim they are "so bad at cooking that they could burn water": DO NOT WALK AWAY! Stick around for the ten minutes. In some cases the food will be done even quicker so keep an eye on them.

Enjoy your food gentlemen. PIZZA NACHOS RULE!

Until next time remember, bachelor cooking isn't that hard.