One of the more horrific things that happened yesterday was the back brakes deciding not play nice with my car anymore. Thanks to my husband and some amazing friends of ours, its all fixed. The down side was my car stopped me from trying a new recipe that I'd come up with the day before because there wasn't enough time anymore. The good news is that it lead to last nights dinner!! w00t!
Chicken Quesadillas!!! Yumm!!!
Now, if your anything like me you have an awesome but ANCIENT grill press/waffle iron that you wouldn't trade anything for because it works like an absolute dream.
HOWEVER! I know I'm just a little out there and this is probably not a common thing to find in everyone's cabinets. So you can use your fancy new age quesadilla press, grill press (if it has a flat option), or you can go totally old school and use a skillet!
Ingredients! (This is to make enough for two, adjust it as you need!)
- 2 chicken breast (boneless, skinless is the easiest way to go but use whatever you have!!)
- 2 green bell peppers
- 1/3 of a large onion (this is totally optional, I know not everyone loves onions.)
- 1 good-sized tomato
- Soft tortilla shells, room temperature (I used the little 8 inch ones)
- Shredded cheese (whatever kind you like, we used the mexican blend and mozzarella. Only because we ran out of the mexican blend half way through...oops)
- Taco seasoning, either 1 packet or how ever much the instructions on the canister say to use. (I used Old El Paso Original seasoning, but any taco seasoning will work.)
- Salt, pepper, onion powder & garlic powder. (these are just my usual seasonings that I use when cooking meat, use whatever your most comfortable with!)
- Butter or margarine (which ever rocks your socks!)
Instructions! Get ready for the magic!
Cut your chicken up into about 1 inch pieces.
Put it in a pan on medium-high. Season with the taco seasoning, salt, pepper, onion & garlic powders.
Cook until it's done all the way through & then just put the chicken aside in a bowl to cool for a little bit.
Dice up your bell peppers & toss them in that same pan that you just took the chicken out of. The seasoning that got left behind in the pan gives the peppers an added yum-factor that I'm sure you'll love!
**You can toss in a tiny bit of margarine to help cook & flavor the peppers if you like. I did!
Cook the peppers at a medium heat setting until they soften a bit, just enough to take the initial crunch out of them is all you need. Put the peppers in a separate bowl as well.
Dice your onion up to about 1/2 the size that you diced your peppers.
Put about 1 tablespoon of margarine in the pan & let it melt at medium heat. Then put the diced onions in there too.
Cook the onions down until they've softened. I just wait for them to start becoming clearer around the edges & the lines in them start becoming defined. (This is in no way an exact science for me! Don't judge. lol) This is going to take a few minutes. As soon as they're done just take the pan away from heat.
To occupy your time while the onions cook, dice up your tomato to about 1 cm pcs. Basically just small enough to not make your quesadilla look like a crazy lumpy mess from the outside. It's totally against the laws in Quesadilla County!
Once you've got your tomato diced up, your onions cooked & your practically drooling over the food on your counter because it smells sooooo good, HOLD ON! Your almost there!!
You have to shred your cooled chicken up. Just into smaller pieces. Shred each piece up about 4 or 5 times.
You'll go from having this:
To having this:
OH YEAH! Now it's time to put all of this together & cook it so you can stop drooling already!
Turn on your awesome ancient grill press (or newer press or skillet. Whichever rocks your socks) to a medium setting & let it heat up while your preparing the first quesadilla.
Take one of your soft tortilla shells and lay it flat on a plate.
Take a tiny bit of margarine and spread it over the whole top side of the tortilla.
Sprinkle your shredded cheese on top of the margarine so that its spread over a good bit of the shell, it's going to act kind of like a glue to stick the shell to your food. (Using no more than about a half of a handful in this case is good enough, use more if your making this with the bigger tortilla shells)
After that, put your chicken, green peppers, onions & tomatoes on the shell. Then gently mix it all together with your fingers so its all evenly distributed. Eating a corner of just tomatoes would be weird, at least I think so. Once it's mixed to your hearts content make sure its all nice and flat. I seriously have a thing against lumpy quesadillas!
Sprinkle some more cheese on top, about as much as you used before.
Take another soft tortilla shell, put a tiny about of margarine on it & spread it all around like you did to the first one. Put it on top, as aligned to the other shell as you can make it.
And your ready for some cookin!
Put it in your awesome ancient grill press for about 5 minutes.
If your doing this in a skillet, at about 2 and a half minutes, flip your quesadilla over carefully, your food will try to commit kitchen suicide & come out from between the shells. I'm speaking from experience, lol.
Don't forget to be entertained because it looks like your grill press has a face now!
You want the outsides of your tortilla shells to be browned just a little bit. It'll be nice & crunchy at this point.
Take it off the grill press (by whatever means necessary! I ended up using a really big spatula & holding a corner of it) & cut it up to quarters (I used a pizza cutter to do this because I like when things are easy.)
Enjoy!!!
It was a huge hit here last night! I love happy eaters! I hope its a huge hit at your house too!
Well, I'm off to plan dinner for tonight! Happy eating everybody!
Oh, & Don't forget the dishes. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment