Quesadillas

Yesterday it was 88 degrees outside and I was feeling particularly cranky. What is a girl to do? Well, make my favorite warm weather comfort food of course! Nothing cheers me up like these Quesadillas when I’m feeling down and don’t feel like cooking. Well, at least nothing that doesn’t come out of a paper carton and hangs out in the freezer section. A girl can’t subsist on Chunky Monkey alone so I make these babies. The best part about them is that the options are virtually endless. You can make them anyway you see fit. The boyfriend enjoys his traditionally with Chicken and Cheese. I like mine with black beans, tomatoes, green onions and cheese. You could easily add any combination of meats, vegetables and cheeses. You could make an Italian quesadilla with mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. I know this “recipe” is very Sandra Lee of me but I think everybody needs a reminder once in a while that really good food can be simple and quickly prepared without the need for a formal recipe. So try these okay and have fun with the fillings.

If you’re making chicken quesadillas we start with a pan heating on the stove.

It’s up to you but when I get a particularly large chicken breast I like to cut it in half lengthwise so that it cooks a little more evenly and a little more quickly.

Season it with your seasoning of choice. I adore McCormick’s Season All so I use that.

Make sure you hit both sides pretty liberally or so that they look like this:

Now pop some oil in the pan to heat up

While that heats up I like to drain the black beans. They get all foamy when you start

But should run clear thru by the time you’re done.

Now its time to get cooking the chicken

While thats going I like to chop up my veggies. For this its tomatoes – sliced

Seeded

and chopped. Oh and be sure to keep an eye on your chicken. Make sure you flip it once it starts to look done and don’t overcook it because it’ll caryover cook some when you shred it and you’re going to be heating it up again when you actually cook the quesadillas. Trust me thrice over cooked chicken is not Good Eats.

I usually use scallions but I didn’t have any on hand. This is where the bennefits of having a herb garden come in. I just snip some chives and use those instead.

Once the chicken is done remove it to a plate or cutting board

Chop it up into smaller chunks so that it’ll fit in your food processor.

Or your handy dandy Magic Bullet. Naw-chows anybody? lol. Just kidding.

Process until it’s shredded and looks similar to this. Of course you could leave it in chunks if you like those big chunky quesadillas but the boyfriend like everything about the same creamy smoothness. So I process it. It also makes it easier to keep together as it cooks.

Now that we have all the ingredients prepped we start the assembly line. First layer cheese.

Next layer chicken.

Then I add a few dolops of Taco Sauce. Use whatever you like. You could just as easily use salsa or hot sauce. Just something to make it a little spicy.

Top them with another tortilla and press it down. I like to do this because it makes the filling one amalgus mass. This also prevents that floaty top half when you’re trying to flip these buggers.

Pop them in a heated dry nonstick skillet. You could use oil but I like them dry and crispy. Pls they get a nice toasted exterior rather than a fried one.

Check them frequently because they go from awesomely browned to 9th ring of hell burned in an instant.

Once they’ve been flipped and cooked on the other side remove it to a cutting board and cut into wedges with a pizza slicer. You could use a knife but this just makes it easier.

Chicken ones. Ooey Gooey on the inside. The boyfriend was ravenous and loves these like little girls love ponies. He devoured them before I even sat down to eat mine.

Now on to the second version assembly line – the beginning is the same, tortilla and cheese

Except instead of chicken we add a generous handful of black beans

A good bit of tomatoes

The chives. I also like to add a sprinkling of Season All over the whole thing. The chicken ones didn’t need it because the flavor was all over the shredded chicken. We haven’t seasoned or cooked anything in this version so it needs some *oomph*. Oh and I also add a few dollops of the taco sauce here too.

Press it down like we did with the chicken ones. I give these a little extra elbow grease so that the black beans pop and blend with everything else.

Cook them similarly and they turn out like this post slicing:

Isn’t that heavenly? Oh my lord. Its a good thing that I made extra so that I could have them reheated for lunch today. Otherwise I don’t think I could have uploaded this post without skipping out and running home to making another batch.

Tagged as: light meal, Vegetarian