February 5, 2024 – February 12, 2024

  

Monday:                   Meatballs Alla Firenze in Tomato Sauce

Tuesday:                   Gnocchi-Leek Soup with Greens and Wedge Salad

Wednesday:            Chicken Quesadillas / Guacamole with Chips

Thursday:                 Fox Chapel Golf Club

Friday:                       Leftovers

Saturday:                  Mushroom and Pepperoni Pizza

Sunday:                     Super Bowl, the boys, Murph and Rick – Michael Symon’s Super Bowl Chili                                  Iceberg with Blue Cheese Dressing

Easy, Non-Greasy Chicken Quesadillas

Ay carumba do we have a tasty recipe for you this week.  SWMBO is a huge fancier of quesadillas:  She has an entire booth dedicated to her at the Fox Chapel Mad Mex location and has won two quesadilla-eating contests.*

*Our American Quesadilla-eating contests are a mere shadow of the valiant engorgement  that goes on in Mexico.  The national Quesadilla-eating champion of that excellent country, the birthplace of the quesadiila, Fernanda “Gordo” del Rosario Cayetana y Santa Maria de la Cruz, polished off 98 quesadillas in 30 minutes, just before being rushed to the emergency room. 

NOTE:  This is, of course, a bit of fantasizing on my part.  SWMBO is imperially slim, noted for her continence in eating and usually gives me half of any quesadilla she orders.  And this is why I am telling you about the quesadilla recipe that Beez and I agree is the best.  Here’s the deal – the left-over quesadillas Beez feeds me are always greasy, requiring massive amounts of paper napkins or a bed-spread sized cloth one.  Whether this is because the cheese used has a fair amount of oil in it or it’s cooked in oil, we don’t know.  But the recipe below gives you all the cheese you want and none of the grease.  It involves a dry non-stick skillet and you should use a good cheddar and a good pepper jack and shred them yourself.  So, it may cost a bit more than your average quesadilla.  But why on earth would you ever want to eat an average quesadilla.  Whoops – I take that back.  Beez does like to eat about half of an average quesadilla.

This recipe below is very easy.  After buying a store-cooked rotisserie chicken, all you have to do is shred some chicken, grate some cheese and prepare any garnishes and go-withs you like, and then pile the chicken and cheese on a tortilla, fold it over and place the resulting quesadilla in a non-stick pan and watch until it needs to be flipped over, then watch again until it’s finished.  You can do all this while drinking a Corona or a Modelo or throwing back a shot of tequila.  And then you can sit down and enjoy dinner with your spouse who really likes your cooking.  Heaven or, as they say south of the border, Nube nueve.

CHICKEN QUESADILLAS

(Ali Slagel in NYT Cooking, updated 1/23/24)

Timing:                                              about 20 minutes

Ingredients:              Serves 2, scale up as needed (we made 3)

¾ cup cooked, shredded, cooled chicken (we bought a rotisserie chicken from Giant Eagle and had enough left over for chicken sandwiches and a chicken salad)

1 cup shredded Cheddar or Monterey or Pepper Jack (we mixed cheddar and Pepper Jack)

2 10-inch flour tortillas

½ teaspoon chili powder

Garnishes:  Hot Sauce, salsa, guacamole, sour cream

Prep:

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium.

Prepare your garnishes.

While the skillet is heating, shred the chicken and grate the cheese and toss the chicken, cheese and chili powder together in a large bowl until combined.

Cook:

Pile half of the filling across half of each tortilla and then fold the tortillas over and press slightly.  You will have created a half-moon shape – a quesadilla.

Add the folded tortillas to the skillet and cook, pressing down occasionally, until the cheese has melted and the tortillas are crisp and golden – About 2 minutes or up to 3 per side.

Serve:

Plate quesadillas and allow to sit for 30 seconds or longer, then cut into wedges and eat with garnishes.