Quesadillas. Sheet-pan at that.
You know, I kind of do easy recipes, right? But honestly, unless you're doing Beef Wellington or Boeuf Bourguignon, it's all pretty easy. Even the Boeuf thing is just stew, so it might be time consuming but probably not difficult.
And Mexican food can be pretty simple.
These quesadillas were. And it's kind of versatile. Below is the recipe, but you can gussy them up as you'd like. It's hard to strip them down anymore than they are. The main blog pic looks like a lot of ingredients, but most of those are topping to serve with the dish after it's made. Should you want those extras.
It's a great vegetarian option, as these had no meat. There is cheese, so this isn't vegan, though you could with some whatever fake cheese is.
I made one HUGE blunder with these. I'm bad at spatial recognition. The recipe is kind of for 6 quesadillas. For whatever reason, I thought the ones I normally buy - 8 inch - would fit on one sheet-pan. You can fit two. So we just had bigger serving sizes. And we ended up making two each.
Ingredients
Yield:
6 quesadillas
1 tablespoon avocado or canola oil
6flour tortillas (5 to 6 inches)
2 cups/8 ounces shredded Mexican cheese blend, pepper Jack or mozzarella cheese
Chipotle chile powder, gochugaru, Aleppo pepper or smoked paprika (not all - just one)
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels (optional)
Salt
Any combination of sliced avocado, diced white onion, diced jalapeño, chopped cilantro*, lime wedges, sour cream, salsa and hot sauce, for serving (optional)
* cilantro is never an option.
Preparation
Step 1
Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Step 2
Add the oil to a large sheet pan and use a single tortilla to smear the oil around. Add the remaining tortillas, spacing them out evenly. Divide the cheese among the tortillas, then sprinkle with as much chile powder as you’d like. Top with the corn, if using.
I used corn. It turns out 710 isn't wild about corn in his food (though he'll eat it separately). After 40 years, I guess you can still learn something new about your long term partner. We also used diced jalapeño.
In retrospect I would have placed the cheese and stuff more to one side for easier folding. Live and learn.
Step 3
Bake the quesadillas until the cheese is melted, 5 minutes, then remove the pan from the oven. Using a spatula, fold each tortilla over itself to make half moons. Sprinkle with salt and return to the oven until crispy and lightly browned at the edges, 3 to 5 minutes.
I forgot to sprinkle salt on them. There was no harm in not doing it. All was fine.
Step 4
Serve immediately with any desired toppings.
We sliced each quesadilla into three sections for easer serving. The lime was great and how can you go bad with sour cream and avocado.
As I said we had two each, and it was ok, but I wasn't full full. Maybe it's the lack of protein in them. It seems more of snack food or an appetizer. They were great, but it wasn't quite "dinner", though it was that night.
The oil and the baking made the tortillas crisp, which was really nice. I'm sure we'll do these again.
