Friday, April 27, 2012

¡Quemadillas!

My good friend Greg, who is now proprietor of Cafe Tal in Guanajuato, and bee-tee-dubs makes the very best coffee on the whole planet, used to make an oh-so-clever pun when his quesadillas got a little burned: see, quemar means "to burn" in Spanish, so quemadillas are quesadillas, preferably in flour tortillas, which got a little burned on the outside. This makes them extra tasty, imo.

I recently decided to try Food for Life gluten-free brown rice flour tortillas, because I found them for a pretty reasonable price at my local Dave's. [Note: I am so not important enough to be getting any "promotional considerations" from any vendors. If I mention liking a product, it's because I actually like it.] I'm also a big fan of the gluten-free, vegan, soy chorizo from Trader Joe's, which tastes exactly like the stuff I used to buy in Mexico. I feel like I maybe mentioned this in an earlier post. Oh yep, there it is.

So, I was in the mood for quesadillas this afternoon, and this is what I knocked together:


For the guacamole, I mashed up 1/2 ripe avocado, added a few ounces of Stonewall Kitchen Salsa Verde Hot Sauce, a pinch of salt, juice of 1/8 lime, and some chopped fresh cilantro leaves, then mixed well.

Fillings:

1 small poblano pepper, roasted within an inch of its life over the flame of a gas stove. Just turn on the flame, place the washed pepper on the eye, and turn periodically until it's really well blackened all over. Then, wrap the hot pepper in a clean dish towel and let it cool. When it's cool enough to handle (or almost down to room temperature), it should be relatively doable to peel off the skin. Then, slit open the pepper, remove the seeds, and cut it into strips. I used about half of the strips in one quesadilla.

About 1 oz. soy chorizo, browned over medium heat in a cast-iron skillet until hot.

About 1 oz. cheese ("quesadilla" if you can find it, but mozzarella, oddly enough, works pretty well), grated coarsely.

Then, just heat up a tortilla until it's flexible, add all toppings carefully, making sure the cheese is well mixed in so that everything sticks closed. Fold the tortilla over and press down well, turning the whole thing over at least a couple of times until thoroughly hot.

Move to a cutting board, then cut into wedges. Serve with guacamole. ¡Qué rico!

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