Chicken Quesadillas

Quesadillas of all kinds are a healthy, quick dinner for nights when no one wants to cook much. You can go vegetarian by just using cheese and perhaps sauteed vegetables like peppers and onions or even roasted corn. You can have a vegan quesadilla by using vegan cheese of course (many tortillas are already vegan). You can have any type of thinly sliced and cooked meat inside of course, but I love a good chicken quesadilla. Here's how you make them. Heat a pan over medium high heat and add 1 TB of oil to the pan. Take strips of chicken and season them with adobo or if you lack that then use salt, pepper and cumin. Place them in the pan, not too many at one time or they will not brown properly. You can do the chicken in batches if you like, just do not crowd the pan. When the chicken is cooked through (will not take long since the chicken is cut up into strips, maybe 5 minutes. Do not stir the chicken, simply turn it over when it gets brown on one side. Set chicken aside when cooked and place sliced bell peppers, sliced onions, thinly sliced strips of carrot. If you'd like to add sliced fresh mushrooms, cook them last and cook them separately so they can get browned, taking care again not to overload the pan. Cook all the vegetables until they get some brown color on them and are uniformly soft. Turn down heat to medium and wipe out the pan and place a tortilla in it. Quickly add some shredded cheese to the center of the tortilla, add some chicken strips and cooked veggies, top with more cheese, but do not overload the tortilla or it will be difficult to flip. Add another tortilla to the top and let the bottom tortilla brown and cheese melt, then flip and let cook on the other side. Serve with pico de gallo, sour cream or plain yogurt, and a simple mixed green salad. YUM! As far as amounts go for my family of 4 we need about a dozen tortillas (we use the smaller 6 inch size), half an onion, one bell pepper, half pound of mushrooms (if using) 1 carrot thinly sliced, 1 C of shredded cheese and about 1 good sized chicken breast, pounded flat with a rolling pin and cut into thin strips.

A note on keeping the kitchen clean and orderly

Today I used up some odds and ends in my fridge, you know the sorts of things that take up room in the fridge but you don't want to throw out?

For instance last night there was a small package of Sweet Chili sauce I received in the mail as a sample. I added it into my stir fry. Today I made Russian dressing, so I took the dozen or so sad little dill pickle chips floating around in the bottom of the pickle jar and chopped them up for the dressing instead of using pickle relish. I had some leftover chicken pieces I needed to use up after I made my Apricot chicken. I placed the pieces in a gallon size Ziploc bag and sprinkled the pieces generously with BBQ rub. I had an allllmost empty bottle of ketchup. I opened it up, placed a little water in it and swooshed it around. I squirted that all over the chicken in the bag, then I added a squirt of mustard and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce. I also took a tablespoon of pickle juice from my now empty jar and added that to the chicken, sealed the top and shook the heck out of it all. Now my chicken is defrosting in the bottom of the refrigerator and marinating in an almost effortless and almost free BBQ sauce. I will broil the pieces on Saturday for either lunch or dinner.

I save everything. Leftover pieces of vegetables, like onion tops, carrot ends, the woody stems of asparagus, bell pepper tops, mushroom stems, or anything really get placed into ziploc bags in the freezer to be used for veggie broths, the cooking water for potatoes get saved in the freezer to make potato bread or to add to a potato soup base. Bones from roasted chickens or from bone-in roasts get saved for stock. Shrimp and lobster shells make a great fish stock too! Bacon drippings get saved in a jar in the fridge to sauté vegetables. Even a few tablespoons of leftover spaghetti sauce gets saved to go on a homemade pizza or to use as a dipping sauce. Label everything though or you might find yourself defrosting something just to figure out of it is a fish stock or chicken stock, you know?

The Miracle of One Pound of Hamburger Meat

I often think that for most people instead of going totally meatless it maybe easier to go "less meat". Let me give you and example. I made one pound of hamburger meat the other day and seasoned it for tacos (cumin, chili powder, adobo). I mixed the meat with a couple tablespoons of salsa and we made tacos with meat, cheese, salsa, fresh tomatoes, lettuce and plain yogurt (instead of sour cream). We had beans and rice as a side dish. We did not finish the meat. The next day my husband took two tacos to work for lunch. That night I took the remaining meat and beans and mixed it with some freshly prepared penne pasta and made soup, topped with a little sprinkle of cheese and served with freshly baked bread. If you sub in more vegetables in place of meat you will be eating lighter, cheaper, and more healthfully. The trick is to think of meat as a seasoning or a flavoring device. It is not uncommon for us to eat a pot of collard greens flavored with a couple ounces of pork belly or bacon, a pot of black eyed peas and rice and a pan of corn bread. Is that vegetarian? Clearly not, but is it healthy and delicious and cheap? Certainly!

Another meal we are found of here is to make large backed potatoes, stuffed with cheese and bacon and broccoli, served with a large salad and some steamed green beans (perhaps flavored with bacon grease?) and dinner is ready and decadent. What about stuffed cabbage or stuffed peppers, mixing the meat with cooked rice was a way of stretching the meat for economy but the result is truly delicious food. Many hamburger patty, meatball and meatloaf recipes can be combined with bread crumbs, cooked lentils and/or shredded vegetables to add nutrition and flavor and use less meat as well. We often make a chicken stir fry or fajitas with just one chicken breast in it. Just add more peppers or bok choy or beans as needed. A chicken/rice/broccoli casserole is equally delicious with more broccoli and less chicken in it. Make a French onion soup with leftover chicken broth and top with baguette slice and cheese! The possibilities are nearly endless.

If you wish to go vegetarian because you don't want to eat animals then obviously this won't work for you, but if you'd like to consume less meat for your health, for economic reasons, to ease into full vegetarianism, or for the ecological impact then this might be a good technique for you to explore.

By the way, we are a family of 4, one grade schooler, 1 preschooler and 2 adults. If you are a family with three rapidly growing teenagers or hearty eaters or more just a lot more people then obviously you must adjust your amounts accordingly. :)