Q is for Quesadilla

 

My friend Nikki suggested quesadillas for my "Q" post (this after I begged for ideas at work), and at first, I dismissed it as too ho hum, to every-day. After all, I have fed a LOT of quesadillas to my family over the years. They are quick and easy. I always have the ingredients for them, especially since all my kids liked on them was cheese. I even experimented with some variations (not for the kids, since they made their likes known at an early age), the best one being Pizzadillas, made with mozzarella cheese, diced pepperoni, and dipped in marinara sauce instead of salsa.

THEN Nikki upped the game by sending me a link to a recipe for a cream cheese, raspberry, and pineapple dessert quesadilla. I had all the ingredients (except for fresh raspberries, but those were easy to pick up). Game on.

This is a triple decker quesadilla, and it wasn't difficult, but it was INCREDIBLY messy. It is made by spreading cream cheese on two 6" flour tortillas, then spreading a couple tablespoons of drained, crushed pineapple on one cream cheese coated tortilla. Flip the second tortilla cream cheese side down on top of the pineapple. Spread raspberry jam over that tortilla and sprinkle on some chopped, fresh raspberries, then top with the third tortilla. Put the whole thing in a lightly greased skillet, cook until golden brown, turn it over CAREFULLY and do it again. Let cool slightly before you try to cut it into sections (and be aware that the whole thing is going to slip and slide and make a gigantic mess the second you touch it with a knife). I sprinkled mine with powdered sugar before serving.

Cream cheese topped with crushed pineapple on left,
just cream cheese on right. Right one flips onto left one.

Spread jam on what is now the bottom of the
tortilla spread with cream cheese

Sprinkle chopped, fresh raspberries on top
of the jam.

Guess I didn't take any in the pan or after it
was cut. Imagine this is a skillet with crushed
pineapple falling out onto the hot pan and
snapping and sizzling.

I'm not a big fan of pineapple, so I looked for (and found) a recipe that I, again, had all the ingredients for: Caramel Apple Quesadillas. Tortillas (duh), a can of apple pie filling, and caramel dip for apples. Because the triple decker quesadillas were such a pain to flip and to cut, I made the caramel apple quesadillas the same way I do cheese ones: by spreading the pie filling and caramel on half the tortilla and folding the other half over and then cooking, and this was AFTER I tried to do it by keeping the tortillas flat and failing miserably.  It's definitely MUCH easier to flip and to cut when you fold the tortilla rather than cooking it flat, especially since the pie filling AND the caramel were slippery and kept trying to get away (the apple pieces were quite successful at making their escape). I started spreading some of the cream cheese on the tortilla to act as glue for the apple pie filling. It didn't work, but it sure did taste good!

Took the photos before I learned that it
works much better to put the ingredients 
on one side and fold the tortilla in half.

The caramel might ooze out a bit....

This was after I wised up and started
folding the tortilla over. Slightly neater.
Caramel still oozing crazily

I made these at school so I could share with the rest of the staff, and that somehow prevented me from taking photos not only of the cooking quesadillas, but also of the finished product on serving dishes. That doesn't really matter, since they were deemed to be delicious by everyone who ate them. Well, all except for Nikki and the cream cheese, pineapple, and raspberry quesadilla. Remember how she is the one who found the recipe and sent it to me?

She. Doesn't. Like.  Pineapple.

Make some of these. You don't really need a recipe. Put what you want between two tortillas (or do yourself a favor and put it in one folded in half). It's good eats.