Quesadillas

Whenever I think of quesadillas, I remember my friend Christy.  Sitting in her home in San Diego one day, I watched her whip up some quesadillas for her young daughters.  Before that, I (being from a rural area of Virginia) thought that quesadillas were something complicated that restaurants made:  not people in their own home.  But when I saw her do it, I thought, "That's as easy as making a grilled cheese sandwich!"  And it is (that easy) because it is (a grilled cheese sandwich).  It just uses tortillas instead of bread.  :)

To make a quesadilla, I...

1. heat a frying pan and put a nice pat of butter in it

2. as that melts, put a tortilla (flour or corn, take your pick) in the pan

3. add a generous (because you can never have too much queso) amount of cheese (I like Costco's shredded Mexican cheese blend, but any ol' cheese will work)

4. add anything else you want...this is where it gets fun...you could use tomatoes, black olives, onions (white, red, green, yellow, whatever), cilantro, corn, black beans, kidney beans, take-your-pick beans, jalapenos (or any other hot pepper, depending on your preference), leftover chicken, leftover hamburger, leftover steak, I even used leftover lamb last evening since we have any abundance of lamb right now from the sheep my husband butchered recently (with the meat, I've found it easiest to make sure it's shredded or bite-size before putting it in the quesadilla)...really, the sky's the limit with this

5. put another tortilla on top

6. add some butter on top of that

7. when the bottom tortilla gets nicely browned, the cheese will probably have started to melt beautifully, and it's time to turn it over (which is the hardest part)...I use a big spatula--and my fingers--but even still, I don't always do it "perfectly"...that's OK--a little mess never ruined a quesadilla  :)

8. brown the other side a little, make sure everything is heated through, slide it onto a plate, use a pizza cutter to slice it, and...

9. dig in!

I like to serve this with salsa and sour cream to dip the quesadilla wedges into.  That, combined with Sun Chips and baby carrots, made a delicious meal for my family that required exactly the amount of prep time I had last night:  not much at all!!  :)

Happy Mexican-food feasting (even if it is Mexican with a touch of Virginia country)!  ;-)

Every region has its own Mexican food, and they're very chauvinistic--they believe their food is the real Mexican food.

~ Russ Parson