Hearty Quesadillas (thrifty eating)

As you have read in my previous post, my goal is to eat cheap but healthy, the challenge being that there are only two of us, and so sometimes making dishes causes us to waste a lot of food due to unidentifiable leftovers in the back of the fridge. How can we prepare dishes with common ingredients to get the most for our buck, while still eating well every day, and having plenty of variety? Stay tuned, because I will have plenty of tips that I discover from my own experiences.

I call these quesadillas hearty because they are not your ordinary flimsy ones. Warning: this is not an appetizer, but a meal in and of itself; they are loaded up with a lot more than just cheese between a tortilla. As you can see from my photos, they are oozing with colorful veggies and cheese and atop my frugal bake ware, which is nothing more than approximately 10x10" square piece of aluminum foil -- no mess, easy clean up!

Hearty Quesadillas
Makes six quesadillas, but it's really just about enough for 2 to 4 meals.

Ingredients

7.5oz of Pinto or Black beans -- approx 1/2 of a 15oz can
2tbsp of frozen or canned corn (frozen is good for a little here, a little there, canned is good if you already have some sitting in your fridge as leftovers)
approx 1/4 of a medium to large green pepper, sliced thinly and cut into thirds
4 medium thick slices from a medium to large onion (I prefer vidalia sweet onions, but yellow onions are usually the cheapest) cut in 4ths
4 chicken tenderloins, fresh or frozen OR 1 chicken breast
8oz shredded cheddar cheese or Mexican blend (extremely important or your cheese won't melt -- block cheese is sometimes cheaper, but make sure you have a cheese grater)
6 eight inch tortillas
1/3c of salsa (to taste)
2 to 4 drops of hot sauce (such as tobasco)
sour cream
1tbsp of vegetable oil

Equipment

Stove & rangetop
Small skillet/frying pan
cookie sheet/cake pan or foil
(optional) toaster ovens work great!

Directions

1. Thaw frozen chicken in microwave until flexible, before it starts to cook. cut into 1" thick stripes if you don't have tenderloins. Put oil in small frying pan with the chicken and cook over medium/low heat. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. While the chicken is cooking, wash your hands and start cutting your green pepper and onions. When finished, dump them in your frying pan with the 1/3 cup of salsa, corn and beans. I actually never measure the salsa out, I just kind of dump it over my chicken and eyeball it. Just don't add too much or your mixture will get watery. Mix everything together and let cook for about 5 minutes or so on low heat. You want to make sure your chicken is cooked all the way, so cut it up with your spatula into smaller, bite sized pieces. Once the chicken is white all the way through, let simmer until you are ready to use it. Allow extra time if you used any frozen vegetables.

NOTE: I suppose some of you might be wondering why you'd cut the chicken up with your spatula during the cooking process rather than at the beginning. For one, it's just much easier to cut once it's cooked then trying to cut it when it's raw, secondly, you don't have to worry about having knives with raw chicken on them, this way you only have one contaminated plate if you're thawing. I actually think cooking them in somewhat thick strips and breaking them apart later makes the meat a little more moist, along with the low cooking heat, it allows the juices to remain in meat longer. And lastly, it almost gives a "shredded chicken" texutre, which is ideal for quesadillas -- so you don't have huge chunks of chicken when everything else is pretty finely chopped or small to begin with. But onto the recipe!

3. Lay out your foil/cookie sheet/cake pan. I find that using a cookie sheet works great, but I lay 2 quesadillas on one sheet of foil. I can usually fit about 4 on one pan. Now, there are a few ways to do this. To make the quesadillas in the photo, I laid one tortilla down, put a hefty helping of shredded cheese, and then spooned my chicken and veggie mixture, and topped it with a little more cheese and another tortilla. This method produces 2 quesadillas (one quesadilla consisting of 1 tortilla). This works great for such hefty quesadillas, but I will warn you that flipping these bad boys over is not a task for the faint of heart. I think the easiest way is to use foil for each quesadilla, and use another piece to lay on top of it, then flip it over and remove the was-just-on-the-bottom foil. I didn't use that when I made these, I just tried flipping them with my spatula. Alternatively, you could lay half of the amount of cheese and filling on one half of the tortilla, then fold it over and cook that way -- it's easier to flip! That is what I normally do but I wanted to try another method.

4. Once your first batch is ready, pop it in the oven for about 8 minutes. Then, take it out and flip, and put in for another 3 to 4 minutes. The tortillas should be crispy and the cheese melted. Cut with a knife or pizza cutter. If you made 2 quesadillas in one (tortilla sandwich) then cut it into 4ths. If you made 1 quesadilla (omelet style) then you can cut it in half, or you can attempt to cut it into 4. Bigger slices actually work better because they have a lot of fillings and it's easier to eat that way. Serve with sour cream and salsa!

And that's it!

For the health conscious, use light sour cream, less cheese, or even light cheese. We also got low carb tortillas -- they are a bit more thin than usual and only 81 calories a tortilla.