What My Readers Want, My Readers Get!

Let me just say that it has been crazy fun reading all of the responses from my survey!  Thanks to all of those that have answered and for those of you that haven’t, um, what are you waiting for?  I eventually want to do a post where I share some of the feedback that I received.  In the meantime, I received a couple of comments requesting more of the quick and easy hodgepodge stuff and there was also a strong like for using local ingredients in healthy ways.  I think tonight’s little dish accomplishes all of that.  It’s been another busy week here at the Small Boston Kitchen and sadly, there hasn’t been all that much time to do one of my favorite things; grocery shop!  So tonight, I’m using up some items that I had in my fridge (plus a quick little stop off at the Copley Farmer’s Market) to create a super easy and yet still healthy little dinner.  Tonight’s feature is the quesadilla.  In my opinion, this humble little dish is so underrated it’s not funny.  I actually eat a lot of quesadillas because they are an easy way to use up leftovers.  Similar to the omelet, pizza or even sandwich, quesadillas are a great vehicle for just using things up.  And you can make them as healthy (or as dangerously) as you like them to be. Remember, you’re the chef, you’re in control (which is one of the beauties of eating at home).

Based on what I had in my fridge, my quesadilla had a Mexican flair to it.  It consisted of fresh tomatoes (I’ve got nothing but pure love for the tomato right now), roasted red peppers (which I’m crushing on big time), fiery jalepeno pepper slices (I'm a heat freak), fresh cilantro (to cool things down a bit) and of course, cheese.  (Sweet, sweet cheese...)  I actually used a 2% Mexican blend variety from Sargento that was pretty good.  The best part of all of this?  How freaking easy this is!  Just pile up the toppings on one side of a tortilla, fold the other half over and heat it on both sides in a frying pan.    You can even get a little fancy if you want to throw a couple squeezes of fresh lime juice into some sour cream.  Or serve with a side of salsa (like my chipotle salsa!) But the best part is from start to finish, this takes about 10 minutes until it's fiesta time.  So again, nothing  super wild here, just easy and satisfying and of course, delicious.  Anyway, who said good food had to take a while or be super complicated to be yummy?